British Encounters with Ottoman Minorities in the Early Seventeenth Century

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.

Provides an historical account of how British travellers understood the non-Muslim minorities in the Ottoman empire Explores the entangled identities of the Ottoman subjects in the English imagination Focuses on a seminal period of Anglo-Ottoman cultural encounter in the early seventeenth century

Auteur

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).

Contenu
Introduction.- Chapter 1 - Scattered nations: Jews and Greeks.- Chapter 2 - Eastern Christians.- Chapter 3 - Viewing and addressing women.- Chapter 4 - Free Franks and visiting Westerners.- Conclusion.