ISBN10: 0198830130, ISBN13: 9780198830139, [publisher: Oxford University Press, Oxford] Hardcover Hardcover. From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the eighteenth century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. Typically they reacted to it with fear and distrust; and such feelings were reinforced by the deep hostility of Western Christendom towards Islam. Yet there was also much curiosity about the social and political system on which the huge power of the sultans was based. In the sixteenth century, especially, whenOttoman territorial expansion was rapid and Ottoman institutions seemed particularly robust, there was even open admiration.In this path-breaking book Noel Malcolm ranges throughthese vital centuries of East-West interaction, studying all the ways in which thinkers in the West interpreted the Ottoman Empire as a political phenomenon - and Islam as a political religion. Useful Enemies shows how the concept of 'oriental despotism' began as an attempt to turn the tables on a very positive analysis of Ottoman state power, and how, as it developed, it interacted with Western debates about monarchy and government. Noel Malcolm also shows how a negative portrayal ofIslam as a religion devised for political purposes was assimilated by radical writers, who extended the criticism to all religions, including Christianity itself.Examining the works ofmany famous thinkers (including Machiavelli, Bodin, ...
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ISBN10: 0198830130, ISBN13: 9780198830139, [publisher: Oxford University Press, Oxford] Hardcover Hardcover. From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the eighteenth century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. Typically they reacted to it with fear and distrust; and such feelings were reinforced by the deep hostility of Western Christendom towards Islam. Yet there was also much curiosity about the social and political system on which the huge power of the sultans was based. In the sixteenth century, especially, whenOttoman territorial expansion was rapid and Ottoman institutions seemed particularly robust, there was even open admiration.In this path-breaking book Noel Malcolm ranges throughthese vital centuries of East-West interaction, studying all the ways in which thinkers in the West interpreted the Ottoman Empire as a political phenomenon - and Islam as a political religion. Useful Enemies shows how the concept of 'oriental despotism' began as an attempt to turn the tables on a very positive analysis of Ottoman state power, and how, as it developed, it interacted with Western debates about monarchy and government. Noel Malcolm also shows how a negative portrayal ofIslam as a religion devised for political purposes was assimilated by radical writers, who extended the criticism to all religions, including Christianity itself.Examining the works ofmany famous thinkers (including Machiavelli, Bodin, ...
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ISBN10: 0198830130, ISBN13: 9780198830139, [publisher: OUP OXFORD 2019-05-02, Oxford] Hardcover Language: ENG
[London, United Kingdom] [Publication Year: 2019]