Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World

Nükhet Varlik is Assistant Professor of History at Rutgers University, Newark. She is the recipient of an NEH Fellowship by the American Research Institute in Turkey, a Senior Fellowship from Koç University's Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, and a Turkish Cultural Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.

• Part I. Plague: History and Historiography: 1. A natural history of plague; 2. Plague in Ottomanist and non-Ottomanist historiography; 3. The Black Death and its aftermath (1347–1453); Part II. Plague of Empire: 4. The first phase (1453–1517): plague comes from the West; 5. The second phase (1517–70): multiple plague trajectories; 6. The third phase (1570–1600): Istanbul as plague hub; Part III. Empire of Plague: 7. Plague transformed: changing perceptions, knowledge, and attitudes; 8. The state of the plague: politics of bodies in the making of the Ottoman state; Epilogue.

'… a book that tackles and raises major questions about Ottoman history and the hitherto under-studied subject of disease. Much as the subject of plague has been ascribed great importance within the historiography of medieval and early modern Europe, Varlik demonstrates that plague in the Eastern Mediterranean merits consideration as the focal point in the study of the Ottoman Empire and its capital in Istanbul … Whether continuing the study of diseases and their relationship with a transformation polity or exploring how cats became cuddly co-agents in an Ottoman reaction to repeated epidemics, Ottomanist scholars will return to Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World as an important source of new questions in the years to come.' Chris Gratien, The Journal of Ottoman Studies