ŞEVKET PAMUK, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire, Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Pp. 301. $69.95 cloth.

Abstract

The title of Şevket Pamuk's book is misleading. Far from restricting himself to monetary phenomena—interest rates, coinage, inflation, and availability of specie—the author has chosen to cast his study of money during the Ottoman period (1300–1918) in the widest possible terms. Viewing some of the crucial issues of Ottoman economic and political history through a monetary lens has produced new and interesting insights—in some cases, the result is a revision of old arguments—but on other matters, Pamuk has produced provocative new hypotheses. Furthermore, the book offers a timely addition to the rapidly developing field of global history. Although most of Pamuk's comparative remarks relate to early modern Europe, his study establishes a benchmark against which the analyses of monetary and economic phenomena in the other two early modern Middle Eastern states—the Mughal and the Safavid—can be measured.