Donald Quataert, Social Disintegration and Popular Resistance in the Ottoman Empire, 1881-1908: Reactions to European Economic Penetration, New York: New York University Press, 1983, xxii + 205 pages

Abstract

While Donald Quataert’s Social Disintegration and Popular Resistance in the Ottoman Empire, 1881-1908 is primarily concerned with the resistance of some people in the Ottoman Empire to the Europeanization and capitalization process, the accommodation of other groups and how they benefited from the process is also emphasized. In Quataert’s words, it discusses “the twin themes of resistance and disintegration that characterize the encounter of the Ottoman Empire with the European economy” (Quaatert, 1983, p. 155). In other words, the basis of the study is the effect on Ottoman society of the penetration of Western economics in what Marx called a feudal empire. For him, the intrusion of the Europeans was a disruptive force that fractured the Ottoman polity both horizontally and vertically.