Port Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean


Book Description

A fascinating history of nineteenth century Eastern Mediterranean port cities, re-examining European influence over the changing lives of their urban populations.




Eastern Mediterranean Port Cities


Book Description

This book surveys the historical development, current problems and likely prospects for Eastern Mediterranean port cities, providing contributions from scholars from various disciplines, such as archaeologists, historians, economists, urban planners and architects. By studying the city of Mersin and the surrounding area, it offers insights into the changing nature of Eastern Mediterranean port cities. The first part of the book discusses the approaches to the Mediterranean World, from the late prehistory to the present, and questions the implications of the values inherited from the past for a sustainable future. The second part then examines the social structure of Eastern Mediterranean port cities presenting an in-depth study of different ethnic groups and communities. In the third part the changing physical structure of these cities is elucidated from the perspectives of archaeology, architecture, and urban planning. The last part focuses on urban memory through a detailed study based on live recordings of original accounts by the local people. The book benefits prospective researchers in the field of Mediterranean studies, archaeology, history, economic history, architecture and urban planning.




Cities of the Mediterranean


Book Description

The Eastern Mediterranean is one of the world's most vibrant and vital commercial centres and for centuries the region's cities and ports have been at the heart of East-West trade. Taking a full and comprehensive look at the region as a whole rather than isolating individual cities or distinct cultures, Cities of the Mediterranean offers a fresh and original portrait of the entire region, from the 16th century to the present. In this ambitious inter-disciplinary study, the authors examine the relationships between the Eastern Mediterranean port cities and their hinterlands as well as inland and provincial cities from many different perspectives - political, economic, international and ecological - without prioritising either Ottoman Anatolia, or the Ottoman Balkans, or the Arab provinces in order to think of the Eastern Mediterranean world as a coherent whole. Wide-ranging in scope, Cities of the Mediterranean explores diverse topics, weaving together history, sociology, geography, cartography, politics and economics. Early chapters examine the impact of the 'Little Ice Age'; the global economy's shift from the Mediterranean to Antwerp and Amsterdam; early European perceptions of the Eastern Mediterranean; 19th-century harbour building practices and their impact on the cities; and the connections between Alexandria, Izmir and Thessalonica and their vast and diverse hinterlands. The book also explores political radicalism in Turkey and elsewhere as well as the illegal trade networks that linked the Balkans and Adriatic with the Mediterranean and the introduction of new technologies that led to the faster transport of people, goods and information. Through its penetrating analysis of the various networks that connected the ports and towns of the Mediterranean and their inhabitants throughout the Ottoman period, Cities of the Mediterranean presents the region as a unified and dynamic community and paves the way for a new understanding of the subject.




Mediterranean Port Cities


Book Description

This book studies the change in Mediterranean port cities, from the nineteenth century when they flourished as a result of international economic relations and advances in transportation technology, through the twentieth century when the nation-states were at their prime time. This trajectory with two distinct parts belongs as a whole to what we call the modern times. Whereas in the first phase, Mediterranean port cities became hubs of spontaneous urban complexity and social diversity thanks to reciprocal relations that made them the places of cultural exchange, where people from different parts of the Mediterranean met one another, during the second, because of the interruption of such connectivities and major demographic changes the same cities experienced by way of massive migration, they became less and less unlike other cities with which they shared the same geography in general and the nation-state territory, in particular. Over the last few decades, with a new round of globalization, port cities increasingly find themselves facing new opportunities and connectivities, the realization of which would make them once again different, albeit in variegated ways and to degrees. Our narrative foregrounds contexts and connectivities with specific attention paid to mobility, fragility, and precarity. The purpose of this book is to highlight commonalities of and differences among the select Mediterranean port cities, with a focus on the role of social actors, changing economic relations and spatial characteristics and practices.




The Mediterranean


Book Description

This book addresses contemporary geographical issues in the Mediterranean Basin from a perspective that recognizes the physical characteristics and cultural interactions which link the different Mediterranean states as a recognisable geographic entity. Sixteen chapters each deal with a major geographical issue currently facing the Mediterranean, each providing an invaluable summary of the extensive but widely dispersed literature relating to Mediterranean issues. Particular emphasis is placed on the interaction between society and environment in terms of environmental management, differential regional development and its associated political, demographic, cultural and economic tensions.




The Mediterranean Response to Globalization Before 1950


Book Description

The studies in this exceptional volume explore the challenges and opportunities presented by globalization events prior to 1950, and identify how countries around the Mediterranean responded to them. In addition to comparative assessments of regional performance, the volume offers detailed case studies of Spain, Italy, the Balkans, Turkey, Israel and Egypt.




The Ottomans 1700-1923


Book Description

Originally conceived as a military history, this second edition completes the story of the Middle Eastern populations that underwent significant transformation in the nineteenth century, finally imploding in communal violence, paramilitary activity, and genocide after the Berlin Treaty of 1878. Now called The Ottomans 1700-1923: An Empire Besieged, the book charts the evolution of a military system in the era of shrinking borders, global consciousness, financial collapse, and revolutionary fervour. The focus of the text is on those who fought, defended, and finally challenged the sultan and the system, leaving long-lasting legacies in the contemporary Middle East. Richly illustrated, the text is accompanied by brief portraits of the friends and foes of the Ottoman house. Written by a foremost scholar of the Ottoman Empire and featuring illustrations that have not been seen in print before, this second edition is essential reading for both students and scholars of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman society, military and political history, and Ottoman-European relations.




Liberty and the Search for Identity


Book Description

Liberalism was not only the first modern ideology, it was also the first secular movement to have an international presence. The scholarly articles in this collection, skillfully edited by Iván Zoltán Dénes, examine liberal ideas and movements from Scotland to the Ottoman Empire. The volume seeks to uncover and analyze various relationships between liberalisms and nationalisms, national identities and modernity concepts, nations and empires, nation-states and nationalities, traditions and modernities, images of the self and the others, modernization strategies and identity creations. This volume provides an important historical analysis that is essential toward understanding the questions and motivations of liberalism in the European Union today. This is, therefore, a timely contribution to both historiography and contemporary politics.




Dock Workers


Book Description

Workers who loaded and unloaded ships have formed a distinctive occupational group over the past two centuries. As trade expanded so the numbers of dock labourers increased and became concentrated in the major ports of the world. This ambitious two-volume project goes beyond existing individual studies of dock workers to develop a genuinely comparative international perspective over a long historical period. Volume 1 contains studies of 22 major ports worldwide. Built around an agreed framework of issues, these 'port studies' examine the type of workers who dominated dock labour, their race, class and ethnicity, the working conditions of dockers and the role of government as employer, arbitrator and supporter. The studies also detail how dockers organized their labour, patterns of strike action and involvement in political organizations. The structure of the port city is also outlined and descriptions given of the waterside environment. These areas of investigation form the basis for a series of 11 thematic studies which comprise Volume 2. Drawing on the information provided in the port studies, these essays identify important aspects and recurring themes, and explain how and why particular cases diverge from the rest. The final chapter of the book synthesizes the various approaches taken to offer a model which suggests several configurations of dock labour and presents suggestions for future research. This major scholarly achievement represents the most sustained attempt to date to provide a comparative international history of dock labour. An annotated bibliography completes this essential reference work.




Literature and Culture in Late Byzantine Thessalonica


Book Description

The 'long' fourteenth century perhaps can be seen as Thessalonica's heyday. Alongside its growing commercial prowess, the city was developing into an important centre of government, where members of the Byzantine imperial family of the Palaiologoi ruled independently under full imperial titles, striking coinage and following an increasingly autonomous external policy. It was also developing into a formidable centre for letters, education, and artistic expression, due in part to Palaiologan patronage. This volume sets out the political and commercial landscape of Thessalonica between 1303 and 1430, when the city fell to the Ottoman Turks, before focusing on the literary and hymnographical aspects of the city's cultural history and its legacy. The cosmopolitan nature of urban life in Thessalonica, the polyphony of opinions it experienced and expressed, its multiple links with centres such as Constantinople, Adrianople, Athos, Lemnos and Lesvos, and the diversity and strength of its authorial voices make the study of the city's cultural life a vital part of our understanding of the Byzantine Eastern Mediterranean.