Tax Administration in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire

Linda Darling

hosted by Sam Dolbee

| In this episode, Linda Darling discusses the history of tax administration in the early modern Ottoman Empire, and how attention to it can open up a broad range of questions about technology, governance, and military power and, in the process, dispell simplistic stereotypes such as the "Sick Man of Europe." In addition, she speaks more broadly about her path to Ottoman history, her studies with Halil Inalcık, and how she came to write a book about tax administration. In closing, she touches on what projects--on the cusp of retirement--she is thinking about now.

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In this episode, Linda Darling discusses the history of tax administration in the early modern Ottoman Empire, and how attention to it can open up a broad range of questions about technology, governance, and military power and, in the process, dispell simplistic stereotypes such as the "Sick Man of Europe." In addition, she speaks more broadly about her path to Ottoman history, her studies with Halil Inalcık, and how she came to write a book about tax administration. In closing, she touches on what projects--on the cusp of retirement--she is thinking about now.

Contributor Bios

	Linda Darling is Professor of History at University of Arizona. Her books are Revenue Raising and Legitimacy: Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire (1996) and A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East: The Circle of Justice from Mesopotamia to Globalization (2013).
	Sam Dolbee is Assistant Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, where he teaches classes on environment, disease, and the modern Middle East. His book Locusts of Power will be out in spring 2023 from Cambridge University Press.

Credits

Episode No. 541
Release Date: 4 April 2023
Recording Location: Denver, CO
Sound production by Sam Dolbee

Music: Chad Crouch, "Pacing"; Zé Trigueiros, "Petite Route," "Chiaroscuro"

Further Listening

	Nadir Özbek	224 2/10/16	Osmanlı'da Vergi Siyaseti (1839-1908)
	Boğaç Ergene	239 4/11/16	Economics and Justice in the Ottoman Courts
	Nükhet Varlık	252 7/29/16	Tracing Plague in the Ottoman Empire
	Cemal Kafadar	464 6/29/20	Between Past and Present, Part 1
	Fariba Zarinebaf	507 7/23/2021	Galata and the Early Modern Mediterranean World

Select Bibliography

Darling, Linda. Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy: Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire 1560-1660. Leiden: Brill, 1996. 

Darling, Linda. A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East: The Circle of Justice from Mesopotamia to Globalization. London: Routledge, 2013. 

Darling, Linda. "Contested Territory: Ottoman Holy War in Comparative Context." Studia Islamica 91 (2000): 133-163.

Darling, Linda. "The Mediterranean as a Borderland." Review of Middle East Studies 46.1 (2012): 54-63.

İnalcık, Halil.  An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 

Murphey, Rhoads. Ottoman Warfare 1500-1700. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1999. 

Salzmann, Ariel. Tocqueville in the Ottoman Empire: Rival Paths to the Modern State. Leiden: Brill, 2004.