Mapping, regularizing and modernizing Ottoman Istanbul: aspects of the genesis of the 1839 Development Policy

Abstract

Modernization and westernization in the urban morphology of Istanbul during the late Ottoman period has frequently been presented by Turkish scholars in a linear process, linking urban development plans and later changes to the influence of historic figures, such as Helmuth von Moltke, a Prussian military adviser of the 1830s. A more holistic reading of this phenomenon based on primary sources, including letters in German by von Moltke, reveals a complex array of forces, responses and reactions, and simultaneously, a more modest and less seminal role for von Moltke in the development of the historic city.