History in the Making – Empires and Ethnology: A New Perspective from the Ottoman Empire

Historians have long asserted a close connection between ethnology—the practice of systematically describing cultural differences—and imperial expansion.  But in this respect, the early modern Ottoman Empire presents an apparent paradox.  Despite expanding across a territory that encompassed all or part of over 30 modern nation-states, early Ottoman authors avoided describing and categorizing the languages and ethnicities of the empire’s subject peoples.  Instead, they began to do so at the end of the seventeenth century—long before the onset of Western modernity, but long after the end of Ottoman imperial expansion.  How can this apparent paradox be explained?  And what lessons might it hold not only for Ottoman history but for a more general understanding of the relationship between knowledge and empire in the early modern world?

Giancarlo Casale is professor of Mediterranean history and head of the history department at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. He is a specialist in the history of the Ottoman empire and its relations with the larger early modern world. His books include The Ottoman Age of Exploration (Oxford 2011) and Prisoner of the Infidels: the Memoir of an Ottoman Muslim in 17th Century Europe (California, 2021). Since 2010, he has also served as executive editor of the Journal of Early Modern History.

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