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In his book on constitutional revolutions in the Ottoman Empire and Iran in the early twentieth century, Nader Sohrabi considers the global diffusion of institutions and ideas, their regional and local reworking and the long-term consequences of adaptations. He delves into historic reasons for greater resilience of democratic institutions in Turkey as compared to Iran. Arguing that revolutions are time-bound phenomena whose forms follow global models in vogue at particular historical junctures, he challenges the ahistoric and purely local understanding of them. Furthermore, he argues that macro-structural preconditions alone cannot explain the occurrence of revolutions, but global waves, contingent events and the intervention of agency work together to bring them about in competition with other possible outcomes. To establish these points, the book draws on a wide array of archival and primary sources that afford a minute look at revolutions' unfolding.
Annotation The 19th century prevails in this anthology on the transformation of the late Ottoman state into modern Turkey. Thirty-three articles are arranged in three categories: the Ottoman socio-political transformation, the population movements of immigration and migration, and the formation of nation-states with politico-religious identities. Karpat (history, U. of Wisconsin) has a central aim: to counteract what would become bureaucratic Republican attempts by the Turkish Historical Society (formerly, the Ottoman Historical Society) to cut off Turkish history from its Ottoman past. The THS was able to do this by instead connecting the Republic with its earlier Central Asian roots, and by relying too heavily on European versions of Ottoman/Turkish history more unfavorable to things Ottoman. Topics include the social and economic transformation of Istanbul in the 19th century, Jewish population movements in the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman relations with the Balkan nations after 1683, and Romanian independence and the Ottoman state. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).