Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Note on the text; Dramatis personae; Chronology; List of abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Out of the east: early life (c.1735–68); 2. At war (1768–74); 3. Years of faction and reform (1774–87); 4. 'Honorable exile': in Spain (1787–8); 5. At war (1788–92); 6. Vâsıf and the new order (1792–1800); 7. The height of fame (1800–6); 8. Epilogue: Vâsıf as ancient and modern; Appendix: on the authorship of the Final Word to Refute the Rabble; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.

Promotional Information

This book explores intellectual life, politics and reform in the eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire by studying statesman and historian Ahmed Vâsıf.

About the Author

Ethan L. Menchinger is currently a lecturer at the University of Michigan. He was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the Forum Transregionale Studien and Freie Universität, Berlin, and a visiting scholar at the University of Toronto.

Reviews

'The First of the Modern Ottomans deserves a wide readership, not just for the past it portrays but as well for the philosophical questions that have endured into our own time.' Madeline C. Zilfi, Journal of Islamic Studies

'Situating the historian Vasif within the revolving core of Ottoman modernity, Ethan L. Menchinger gives us a thoroughly researched and often entertaining book that uncovers the links between the Ottoman worldview, literary culture, and international power politics. This is an engagingly written, sympathetic portrait of a man at once immensely gifted and deeply flawed - an impressive work of new scholarship.' Douglas A. Howard, Professor of History, Calvin College

'This is the return of narrative history and the genre of biography with a vengeance, but a sweet vengeance at that. Based on painstaking research in scores of manuscripts and archival documents, it tells the story of the prolific and rather odious Ottoman chancery officer and court historian, Ahmed Vasif (d. 1806) … In short, this is a coming of modern age story, which is a must-read for Ottomanists and comparativists alike.' Dana Sajdi, Associate Professor of History, Boston College

'Although there are a few good biographies of well-known Ottoman bureaucrats and intellectuals, intimate accounts of Ottoman individuals have not proliferated in modern scholarship. Ethan L. Menchinger's The First of the Modern Ottomans is therefore a very welcome and well-executed contribution to this genre … [This is] required reading for all who want to understand the intellectual history of the period …' Hakan Karateke, Professor of Ottoman Turkish Culture, Language and Literature, University of Chicago