Modernity Alla Turca

A scholarly study of the late Ottoman Empire’s unique experiment of modernization that provides an alternative understanding of nineteenth-century world history.

Modernity Alla Turca: Ottoman Military, Education, and Welfare, 1826–1923 focuses on the complex issue of modernity and change in the Ottoman Empire, a non-Western state facing European imperialism. It analyses three specific areas of transformation: the military, education, and welfare, which were central to the process of modernization in the age of capitalist globalization. The state-sponsored reform measures directed toward these sectors had already been present in previous centuries. These circumstances created patterns of both resistance and accommodation among the population, which in turn contributed to the inconsistent quality of Ottoman reforms. This unique experiment of modernization makes it all the more important to understand the extent to which the innovations represented a radical break with the past.