British Encounters with Ottoman Minorities in the Early Seventeenth Century: 'Slaves' of the Sultan - Hardcover

by Eva Johanna Holmberg (Author)

British travellers regarded all inhabitants of the seventeenth-century Ottoman empire as 'slaves of the sultan', yet they also made fine distinctions between them. This book provides the first historical account of how British travellers understood the non-Muslim peoples they encountered in Ottoman lands, and of how they perceived and described them in the mediating shadow of the Turks. In doing so it changes our perceptions of the European encounter with the Ottomans by exploring the complex identities of the subjects of the Ottoman empire in the English imagination, de-centering the image of the 'Terrible Turk' and Islam.

Back Jacket

British travellers regarded all inhabitants of the seventeenth-century Ottoman empire as 'slaves of the sultan', yet they also made fine distinctions between them. This book provides the first comprehensive cultural historical account of how British travellers understood the non-Muslim minority peoples they encountered in the Ottoman empire, and of how they perceived and described them in the mediating shadow of the Turks. In doing so it seeks to change our perceptions of the British encounter with the Ottomans by exploring the entangled identities of the Ottoman subjects in the English imagination, de-centering the image of the 'Terrible Turk' and Islam.

Author Biography

Eva Johanna Holmberg is an Academy Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy, History and Art Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and a visiting research fellow at the School of History, Queen Mary University of London, UK. Her previous publications include Jews in the Early Modern English Imagination - A Scattered Nation (2012).