A Portrait of Ottoman Aleppo, 1516-1918

FAIN: FB-58369-15

Charles Wilkins, PhD
Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, NC 27109-6000)

This book portrays a Mediterranean Ottoman city over four turbulent centuries. It explores the lives of people whose home was the Syrian city of Aleppo but whose careers bridged different social and cultural formations across and beyond the Ottoman Empire. Just as Aleppo stood astride major routes of intercontinental trade and communication, so too did its inhabitants, both native and adopted, have their feet in different worlds. Structured as a series of interpretive and thematically linked biographical essays, the book is among the first to trace the longue-duree evolution of identity in the Ottoman Empire, from the Ottoman conquest of Arab lands in the 16th century to the collapse of the empire in the early 20th century. In its emphasis on showing how each person established connections to the city of Aleppo, the book offers a composite picture of how the city could be comprehended in different ways.