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The Ottoman Industrial Revolution*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Edward C. Clark
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Extract

The European industrial revolution adversely affected the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century and was instrumental in its final collapse. The eastward flow of European goods grew rapidly in the years following the end of the Napoleonic era in 1815, and Ottoman lands soon became important markets for many European manufacturers. Their wares increasingly displaced traditional Ottoman products, made Ottoman handicraftsmen jobless, reduced Ottoman internal sources of taxes, and so contributed to eventual European control of Ottoman finances. These phenomena are well known and have received appropriate recognition as symptoms of an economic invasion that was aided by the diplomacy of West European consuls and ambassadors, and sanctified by largely unquestioned European arguments in favor of laissez-faire.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , January 1974 , pp. 65 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

page 65 note 1 For an extensive treatment of Ottoman-European economic relations see Puryear, Vernon, International Economics and Diplomacy in the Near East, 1834–1853 (Stanford, 1935).Google Scholar For contemporary views see Hamlin, Cyrus, Among the Turks (London, 1878), pp. 57–60,Google Scholar and portions of Chevallier, Dominique, ‘Western Development and Crisis in the Mid-Nineteenth Century.…,‘ in Polk, William R. and Chambers, Richard L. (eds.), Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East: The Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 1968), pp. 205–22.Google Scholar

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page 66 note 1 Karal, Enver Ziya, Selim III'ün hatt-i Hümayunlari-Nizam-i Cedit, 1789–1807, Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlarindan, cilt VII, no. 14. (Ankara, 1946), pp. 61–3.Google Scholar

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page 74 note 1 FO 195/290, Carr to Canning, Büyukdere, 20 Oct. 1848;Google ScholarMacFarlane, vol. II, pp. 227, 611f., 628ff.Google Scholar

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page 74 note 3 FO 78/598, Canning to Aberdeen, Constantinople, 21 June 1845;Google ScholarFO 195/208, Sandison to Canning, Bursa, 9 Dec. 1843;Google ScholarMacFarlane, vol. I, pp. 222 ff.Google Scholar

page 74 note 4 DeKay, p. 120. This observation dates from the early 1830s, but there is no evidence for a basic change in either government policy or foreigners' attitudes by the late 1840s.Google Scholar

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page 75 note 1 Regular five-day summaries of the Sultan's activities in JC indicate that Abdülmecid visited even the nearest factories no more than once per year during the period 1843–8.Google Scholar

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page 75 note 3 MacFarlane, vol. II p. 620f.Google Scholar

page 75 note 4 MacFarlane, vol. II p. 620f.Ibid. p. 453.

page 75 note 6 Alageyik, p. 9.Google Scholar

page 76 note 1 Hershiag, Z. Y., Turkey, the Challenge of Growth (Leiden, 1968), p. 91; interview data collected by the writer in Turkey, February 1967 to March 1968.Google Scholar