ASIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST Gold for the Sultan: Western Bankers and Ottoman Finance 1856–1881. By Christopher Clay. London: I. B. Tauris, 2001. Pp. xxii, 698. $65.00.

Extract

The borrowing crisis of 1856–1881 was a crucial episode in late Ottoman history; by focusing on its course, Christopher Clay has performed a real service for generalists and Ottoman specialists alike. In its 11 fact-packed chapters, plus introduction and conclusion, the book is mainly a study in the history of financial diplomacy. It seeks to trace the unfolding relations between Western and Central European bankers and the Ottoman state in era from the Crimean War through the 1870s bankruptcy, the subsequent Decree of Muharrem, and the formation of Ottoman Public Debt Administration in 1881. Its lengthy treatment of the negotiations over the loans contracted by the Ottoman state on the road to bankruptcy fill a longstanding gap in our knowledge. Between 1903 and 1929, in the decades surrounding the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, as it was taking on huge international debt, a number of important works traced its finances and its international debt obligations. But thereafter, until the late 1990s, very little was written on the subject despite an explosion of scholarship on Ottoman economic history in general.