Making a Living in the Ottoman Lands, 1480 to 1820

Making a Living in Ottoman Lands is a collection of essays by Suraiya Faroqhi on life in the Ottoman provinces. Faroqhi questions the notion that studying the non-peasant provincials should be done merely to understand the functioning of the Ottoman state, the activities of the Ottoman merchant class or changes in agrarian nature of the empire. Instead of concentrating on these ‘macro’ features, she opts to look at minor figures as a means of understanding how minor officials indirectly wielded greater power – even political leverage. Faroqhi is concerned in her essays with what she calls ‘conjunctural’ changes which might normally go undetected. Faroqhi addresses people within structures, such as guilds or trade networks, both for what we can learn about them and for what they tell us about the peasantry, who are otherwise poorly represented in Ottoman-era documents.