Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-gtgcz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-12T19:37:55.326Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

20 - On the Shores of Empire

from Part III - Frames and Actors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2025

Alexis Wick
Affiliation:
Koç University, Istanbul
Get access

Summary

Much has been written on whether the Ottoman Empire was a terrestrial or a maritime one. Lost in this binary is what lies in between, namely the terraqueous dimensions of imperial rule. Enquiring into the interaction between land and water, the chapter transcends this divide and explores the ecological and economic continuum of the seas, continents, coastlines, islands, rivers, and lakes that compose the Ottoman world. Neither completely terrestrial nor simply aquatic, they are best conceived as hybrid spaces where land and water interact. We posit three Ottoman terraqueous zones defined by four rivers and four seas: the Danube, the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea, and the Adriatic Sea in the north domains of the empire; the Nile, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Red Sea in the south; and Mesopotamia, from eastern Anatolia to the Persian Gulf in the east.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Suggested Further Reading

Ágoston, G. 2009, ‘Where Environmental and Frontier Studies Meet: Rivers, Forests, Marshes and Forts along the Ottoman-Hapsburg Frontier in Hungary,’ in Peacock, A. C. S. (ed.), The Frontiers of the Ottoman World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 5679Google Scholar
Gratien, C. 2022, The Unsettled Plain: An Environmental History of the Late Ottoman Empire, Stanford: Stanford University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hadjikyriacou, A. 2020, ‘Ottoman(ist)s and the Sea, Islands, and Space: An Overview of the State of the Field on the Occasion of a Recent Review Article,Turkish Historical Review, 11, pp. 303–23Google Scholar
Husein, F. 2021, Rivers of the Sultan: The Tigris and Euphrates in the Ottoman Empire, New York: Oxford University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wick, A. 2016, The Red Sea: In Search of Lost Space, Oakland: University of California PressGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×