Fans pick 100 books like An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire

During my graduate school years at Carnegie-Mellon University, I was exposed to Thomas Sargent’s Macroeconomic Theory, which taught me how to work with difference equations.

More importantly, it inculcated the notion in me that economic theory and econometrics are inseparable notions. The approach that I attained from this book together with the courses that I took at Carnegie-Mellon’s Graduate School of Industrial Administration - GSIA as it was called then – have colored by my research outlook and my research itself over the years.

While Thomas Sargent produced many other graduate textbooks on macroeconomics in future years, I might say this was the most influential one (for me) in terms of the fluidity of its writing and its attempt to bridge macroeconomic theory and empirical research. 

This choice is obvious and tough.

The book is notoriously difficult. However, it ranks with Darwin’s Origins of the Species, and Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity as among the most important and revolutionary books ever.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Keynes changed everything in the same way that Darwin and Einstein had. It will change the way you see the world if you make the substantial effort. Keynes argues that it is the organization of our economy around money that causes unemployment—not high wages or lazy workers.

Here’s my one sentence summary: firms only hire the number of workers they need to produce the output they expect to sell at a profit. If they cannot make money from hiring you, you are unemployed.

This is a collected volume that Kevin Hoover of Duke University put together to provide a philosophical and methodological viewpoint on the empirical and quantitative research that was emerging from the Universities of Chicago, Minnesota, Carnegie-Mellon, Rochester in the 1970s and 1980s.

My own article, “Time-to-Build and Aggregate Fluctuations: Some New Evidence”, originally published in International Economic Review in 1989, was re-printed in this volume. Why was this article re-printed in this volume? It showed that a tightly-specified representative consumer model of aggregate fluctuations, regardless of the theoretical enhancements and econometric approach, could not explain series like aggregate output, consumption and investment jointly with aggregate hours.

While Kevin Hoover continued his methodological research on causality, micro-foundations of macroeconomics and the like, this research led me to delve into micro data models of consumption and labor supply with my co-author Robert Miller from CMU to model individual choices under aggregate shocks.     

I read this wonderful book in the early 2000s when I had returned to Istanbul, Türkiye back from a professional position in the UK.

I was captivated by its description of the flora and fauna of our geography. I recall reading how the beloved chestnut trees of our region had made their way there from China. Braudel is an economic historian who is known to have placed physical and biological nature in the foreground of historical analysis. Thus, according to Braudel, nature is not merely space to be conquered or to be shaped by human desires.

Indeed, the organization of economic life in the Mediterranean was probably shaped by the diversity and difficulty of its geography as much as shaping it, as we argued in our article on Mediterranean business cycles published with Fabio Canova in Open Economies Review in 2013.   

Visitors always go to Topkapı Palace and marvel at its elaborate ceremonial courts and beautifully sinister harem where women were sequestered away from prying eyes. It offers a tantalising glimpse into the world of the Ottoman elite but if you want to get a richer idea of what it was like, this book brings it to life. Author John Freely, a physicist and long-term resident of the city, combined historical fact with engaging writing and a blazing passion for all things Ottoman and Turkish to tell the story of the Sultans, their wives, children, and court followers. He drew from rare books in Turkish libraries and travellers’ records as well as letters and reports made by visiting foreign dignitaries of the period to capture moments when innocent amusements, gentle flirtations, and simple pastimes turned into brutal murders and dramatic intrigues.

My home country, Romania, is a stone's throw from Turkey (or Türkiye), and its history has been heavily influenced by the Ottoman Empire. I yearned to read something with Turkish aromas and flavors.

Something as aromatic as Turkish delight and as rich as coffee.

This collection of short stories and poems is about the people who live there. It's a walk in the shoes of its common folk, with their hopes and flaws.

Read this collection of books to stroll through Istanbul's bustling streets, maybe stop for Turkish coffee, or embark on a short train ride or a blue cruise in the turquoise waters of Turkey's four seas, the Mediterranean, the Aegean, the Sea of Marmara, and (my childhood favorite), the Black Sea.

Reading this novel is like opening a secret back door into history. I was propelled into an intimate atmosphere in the kitchens, boudoirs, living rooms, and offices of those involved in the slow-motion collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

I was privy to the political and personal intrigues of an unforgettable cast of characters, both men and women, as well as to their erotic and emotional lives in a rapidly changing society. 

Kafadar’s classic is a compelling prose unraveling the sources and fundamentals of the Ottoman state. It helps navigate the state’s existentialist search for order between Europe and the Orient. I like this book also because it comes from a culturally versed author well trained in multiple countries, disciplines, and traditions. Its focus on early conversations makes it one of my top picks in the Ottoman Empire and the Wider World.

Hot off the press, and building on the success of Aksan's earlier volume on the later Ottoman empire, this book charts the transformation of this once-formidable state into a colonial client of Britain, France, Germany, and Russia. It traces the lives of friends and foes of the Ottomans who witnessed the rise and fall of a constitutional experiment in an era of shrinking borders, global consciousness, ethno-religious nationalism, and revolutionary fervour. The narrative's primary focus is on those who negotiated with, fought for, defended, and finally challenged the sultan and the system in its final days just prior to WWI, resulting in a legacy of international relations and communal violence that continues into the present.   

The workings of the state and the actions of state functionaries have long supplied the essential narrative informing our understanding of Ottoman history. This new volume by University of Chicago partner scholars is the first to give a platform to a wide spectrum of voices hailing from across the sultan's multilingual realm. Women and men, Muslims, Jews and Christians, prisoners and prostitutes, mystics and scholars, and a host of others, reach across the centuries to beguile us with their dreams and legends, anecdotes and jokes, biographies, and hagiographies. Although billed also as a textbook, as is customary these days in order to reach the widest readership, this book is for anyone who seeks affinity with the people of the early modern Ottoman world.