Landholding and Commercial Agriculture in the Middle East

Edited by Caglar Keyder & Faruk Tabak

Subjects: Agricultural Economics
Paperback : 9780791405512, 260 pages, August 1991
Hardcover : 9780791405505, 260 pages, August 1991
Out of print (Hardcover)

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Table of contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Large-Scale Commercial Agriculture in the Ottoman Empire?
Caglar Keyder

Part I

1. The Emrgence of Big Farms, Ciftliks: State, Landlords, and Tenants
Halil Inalcik

2. On the Ciftlik Debate
Gilles Veinstein

Part II

3. Peasants, Commercialization, and Legitimation of State Power in Sixteenth-Century Anatolia
Huri Islamoglu-Inan

4. Wealth and Power in the Land of Olives: Economic and Political Activities of Muridzade Haci Mehmed Agha, Notable of Edremit
Suraiya Faroqhi

5. The Trade of Cotton and Cloth in Izmir: From the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century to the Early Nineteenth Century
Elena Frangakis-Syrett

6. Migrant Labor in Western Anatolia, 1750-1850
Resat Kasaba

7. Property, Land, and Labor in Nineteenth-Century Anatolia
Tosun Aricanli

8. Agrarian Fluctuations and Modes of Labor Control in the Western Arc of the Fertile Crescent, c. 1700-1850
Faruk Tabak

9. The Introduction of Commercial Agriculture in the Province of Mosul and its Effects on the Peasantry, 1750-1850
Dina Rizk Khoury

10. The Grain Economy of Late Ottoman Syria and the Issue of Large-Scale Commercialization
Linda Schilcher

Notes

Glossary

General Bibliography

Contributors

Index

Description

This book traces the evolution of Ottoman agriculture from commercialization of the rural peasant households into global networks of production and trade. It re-evaluates the significance attached to large-scale agricultural units as catalysts of this transformation, and assesses structures of authority and control invested in large landlords, local notables, and the rural producers. The essays in this volume offer different perspectives on the transformation of an important agrarian society in the Middle East.

At the State University of New York at Binghamton, Çağlar Keyder is Associate Professor of Sociology and Faruk Tabak is Research Associate at the Fernand Braudel Center.

Reviews

"This is an important work. It deals with a crucial topic in modern Middle Eastern history from many different perspectives. The transformation of the Ottoman economy to commercial agriculture is important both in itself and what it tells us about the social and political changes occurring in the Middle East in the nineteenth century. The combination of perspectives and the faithfulness with which all the authors stick to the central topic give the work an internal integrity which in turn provides a great deal of cumulative insight into the transformation of Ottoman agricultural society and economy. " — Bruce Masters, Wesleyan University