The Ottoman Age of Exploration by Giancarlo Casale (review)

Abstract

The Ottoman Age of Exploration offers an original and insightful narrative of imperial expansion into the Indian Ocean world at the height of Ottoman power in the sixteenth century. Drawing on both Ottoman and Portuguese sources, author Giancarlo Casale overturns the older view that Muslim powers responded slowly or ineffectually to European maritime expansion. Instead, he explains Ottoman actions in terms of a deliberate geopolitical strategy and domestic factional politics. While this is a valuable contribution to early modern Ottoman and world history, the work is not necessarily targeted toward historians of science or technology; it remains firmly focused on the political and military narrative, with only occasional forays into Ottoman geography, cartography, and navigation.