Science Among the Ottomans by Miri Shefer-Mossensohn
Scholars have long thought that, following the Muslim Golden Age of the medieval era, the Ottoman Empire grew culturally and technologically isolated, losing interest in innovation and placing the empire on a path toward stagnation and decline. Science among the Ottomans challenges this widely accepted Western image of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Ottomans as backward and impoverished. In the first book on this topic in English in over sixty years, Miri Shefer-Mossensohn contends that Ottoman society and culture created a fertile environment that fostered diverse scientific activity. She demonstrates that the Ottomans excelled in adapting the inventions of others to their own needs and improving them. For example, in 1877, the Ottoman Empire boasted the seventh-longest electric telegraph system in the world; indeed, the Ottomans were among the era's most advanced nations with regard to modern communication infrastructure. To substantiate her claims about science in the empire, Shefer-Mossensohn studies patterns of learning; state involvement in technological activities; and Turkish- and Arabic-speaking Ottomans who produced, consumed, and altered scientific practices. The results reveal Ottoman participation in science to have been a dynamic force that helped sustain the six-hundred-year empire.
"Timely..Shefer-Mossensohn consistently avoids the emphasis on technical development that long characterized the literature on science in Islamic contexts, limiting its readership to specialists...Science among the Ottomans opens an important conversation." * H-Net Reviews *
"By offering us a new synthesis that represents the current state of the field, Shefer-Mossensohn’s book addresses the perennial question of what happened to Islamic science and medicine after the Middle Ages. It offers a starting point for further discussions." * Early Science & Medicine *
"Science among the Ottomans is a remarkable achievement…Shefer-Mossensohn has produced a landmark study with which many of us will train the next generation of historians of science." * Turkish Historical Review *
"By offering us a new synthesis that represents the current state of the field, Shefer-Mossensohn’s book addresses the perennial question of what happened to Islamic science and medicine after the Middle Ages. It offers a starting point for further discussions." * Early Science & Medicine *
"Science among the Ottomans is a remarkable achievement…Shefer-Mossensohn has produced a landmark study with which many of us will train the next generation of historians of science." * Turkish Historical Review *
MIRI SHEFER-MOSSENSOHN is an associate professor of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University. She is an Ottomanist, working on both the Arabic- and Turkish-speaking domains of the empire. Her interests lie with medicine and science as a social encounter between scholars and laypersons, patrons and clients, readers and artisans, and the state apparatus and the individual.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781477312216 |
| ISBN 10 | 1477312218 |
| Title | Science Among the Ottomans |
| Author | Miri Shefer-Mossensohn |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | University of Texas Press |
| Year published | 2015-10-15 |
| Number of pages | 262 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |