Virginia Aksan’s Ottomans and Europeans is a collection of articles concerned with the contacts and conflicts between the two groups over the centuries of the Ottoman Empire. Aksan is interested in how the two worlds interacted with one another, whether it be in a period of peace and war. Aksan has long questioned the accepted narrative of a centuries-long decline starting in the 16th century and her writings here reflect this. Instead, the Ottomans are shown to have their own initiatives and resources in facing and encountering Europe through to the end of the Empire in the 20th century. In the Contacts section of this work, Aksan describes interaction, sometimes on a state level and sometime on an individual level. In the Conflicts section, she looks at the Ottoman military’s engagements in and with Europe starting with the capture of Istanbul in 1453. Together, the articles represent Aksan’s efforts to engage in the larger debates about the Ottoman Empire as a part of world history.
