The early modern era was a period of tremendous fluidity in terms of borders of identities. In this podcast, we discuss the life and times of Sefer Muratowicz, an Armenian merchant born in Ottoman Anatolia during the late sixteenth century who settled in

Despite its importance, the family is often not placed in a historical context. Misconceptions and generalizations about past families are often used to define the present. In this podcast, we examine the basic issues and questions in the history of the f

Slavery, the practice of owning human beings, is a nearly universal historical phenomenon that reached its global peak during the eighteenth century and remains present to this day. However, slavery has taken many different forms in different regions: pla

Atay, the sweet mixture of mint and green tea consumed throughout Morocco, is nothing less than a national symbol. However, consumption of tea in the Maghreb only became widespread during the latter half of the nineteenth century. In this episode, Graham

France's invasion of Egypt under Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798 was once seen as a seminal moment in the history of the Middle East and the spread of a modernity equated with European civilization to Muslim world. This narrative, which was largely the product

Lebanon is a country of just a few million, but its musical output has historically rivaled its much larger neighbors in the Arab world. This episode of the Ottoman History Podcast provides an overview of the the history of music in modern Lebanon as well

For all the debate the question has so often provoked, historians have been left with more confusion, disagreement, and apathy than answers when asking whether or not their discipline should be considered a science. However, this debate should have major

In our second installment of an ongoing series on Ottoman Syria, we explore the ecological and economic conditions of Bilad al-Sham and their transformations throughout four centuries of Ottoman rule. Influenced by new interpretations of the region's hist

Human beings live their lives under a state of constant observation that is both perceived and real. Widespread folk traditions such as the notion of the "evil eye" (Turkish: nazar) reflect a belief in the profound power of the mere act of looking, which

For at least two centuries, Western countries have used international criminal, civil, and commercial law as a means of influencing the Ottoman and Turkish governments, leading some to speak of a phenomenon called legal imperialism, and while these effort