Guns for the Sultan: Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire

Description

Gabor Agoston's book contributes to an emerging strand of military history, which examines organised violence as a challenge to early modern states. His is the first to examine the weapons technology and armaments industries of the Ottoman Empire, the only Islamic empire that threatened Europe on its own territory in the age of the Gunpowder Revolution. Based on extensive research in the Turkish archives, the book affords new insights regarding the early success and subsequent failure of an Islamic empire against European adversaries. It demonstrates Ottoman flexibility and the existence of an early modern arms market and information exchange across the cultural divide, as well as Ottoman self-sufficiency in weapons production, well into the eighteenth century. Challenging Eurocentric scholarship, the book disputes the notion of Islamic conservatism and the Ottomans' supposed technological inferiority. This is a discerning analysis which successfully contends traditional perceptions of Ottoman and Islamic history.

Gabor Agoston is Assistant Professor in the Department of History, Georgetown University. His previous publications include Hungary in the Seventeenth Century (with Terez Oborni, 2000).

'Gabor Agoston, an Associate Professor of History at Georgetown, has in Guns for the Sultan done marvellous work in using the empirical data regarding the Ottoman weapons industry to tackle larger theoretical issues in historiography - thus showing a mastery of both. Despite the peril that any such a richly detailed text could end up disintegrating into minutiae, the author's thoughtful and straightforward prose allows the reader to navigate this complex and little-known world. ... Gabor Agoston has achieved a work which will no doubt become standard reference for a long time to come. ... this brand-new study is well worth a read ...'. Balkanalysis.com 'A delight for war history buffs ...' Cornucopia '... both are essential authorities that will be referred to repeatedly and will shape a greater understanding of Turkish history, and contribute to an informed discussion on issues of contemporary global politics.' Asian Affairs 'Agoston introduces some intriguing questions about the differences between state production of weapons and private arms industries; further research on these dynamics might very well provide insights for understanding the cycles of 'organised violence' in terms of the centralised state and popular resistance in both Anatolia and Balkan Europe.' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society