Pınar Emiralioğlu. Geographical Knowledge and Imperial Culture in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire

Özet

Were the Ottomans interested in geographical and cartographic developments while the Europeans were engaged in explorations and initiated discoveries? Or to what extent did geography and cartography became major fields of study among Ottoman scholars, intellectuals or learned people? Against the predominant assumption that the Ottomans were oblivious to these fields, Pınar Emiralioğlu both tries to demonstrate Ottoman interest and clear biased negative image attributed to the Ottoman statesman and scientists. Looking at the available geographical accounts that circulated in Constantinople/Istanbul (as she states that she uses both names interchangeably) in the sixteenth century, Emiralioğlu offers a historical analysis of these works as well as treats them in the context of early modern state formations. In addition to books/pamphlets on geography, her sources include portolan charts and atlases, world maps, travel accounts and coordinate tables etc.