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Useful Enemies: Islam and the Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought,
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Useful Enemies: Islam and the Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750 Hardback - 2019

by Noel Malcolm

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Reader reviews for Useful Enemies: Islam and the Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750

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From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the eighteenth century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. Typically they reacted to it with fear and distrust; and such feelings were reinforced by the deep hostility of Western Christendom towards Islam. Yet there was also much curiosity about the social and political system on which the huge power of the sultans was based. In the sixteenth century, especially, when Ottoman territorial expansion was rapid and Ottoman institutions seemed particularly robust, there was even open admiration.

In this path-breaking book Noel Malcolm ranges through these vital centuries of East-West interaction, studying all the ways in which thinkers in the West interpreted the Ottoman Empire as a political phenomenon - and Islam as a political religion. Useful Enemies shows how the concept of 'oriental despotism' began as an attempt to turn the tables on a very positive analysis of Ottoman state power, and how, as it developed, it interacted with Western debates about monarchy and government. Noel Malcolm also shows how a negative portrayal of Islam as a religion devised for political purposes was assimilated by radical writers, who extended the criticism to all religions, including Christianity itself.

Examining the works of many famous thinkers (including Machiavelli, Bodin, and Montesquieu) and many less well-known ones, Useful Enemies illuminates the long-term development of Western ideas about the Ottomans, and about Islam. Noel Malcolm shows how these ideas became intertwined with internal Western debates about power, religion, society, and war. Discussions of Islam and the Ottoman Empire were thus bound up with mainstream thinking in the West on a wide range of important topics. These Eastern enemies were not just there to be denounced. They were there to be made use of, in arguments which contributed significantly to the development of Western political thought.

Details

  • Title Useful Enemies: Islam and the Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750
  • Author Noel Malcolm
  • Binding Hardback
  • Pages 502
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Oxford University Press
  • Publication date 2019-07-09
  • Features Bibliography, Index
  • ISBN 9780198830139 / 0198830130
  • Weight 1.75 lbs (0.79 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.7 in (23.88 x 16.00 x 4.32 cm)
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 15th Century
    • Chronological Period: 16th Century
    • Chronological Period: 17th Century
    • Chronological Period: 18th Century
    • Cultural Region: Turkey
    • Religious Orientation: Islamic
  • Category History - General History
  • Library of Congress subjects History, Turkey
  • Library of Congress Catalogue Number 2018957358
  • Dewey Decimal Code 320.557

About the author

Noel Malcolm read History and English Literature at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and was a research student at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he wrote his doctoral thesis on Thomas Hobbes. He began his career as Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; he was then political columnist and, subsequently, Foreign Editor of the Spectator, and then chief political columnist of the Daily Telegraph. He gave the Carlyle Lectures at Oxford in 2001 and, since 2002, he has been a Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and an Honorary Fellow of Peterhouse, Trinity, and Gonville and Caius. He has published books and articles on, among other subjects, early modern philosophy (with a particular emphasis on Hobbes), and the history and culture of the Balkans, especially during the Ottoman period. He was knighted in 2014 for services to scholarship, journalism, and European history.

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Useful Enemies: Islam and The Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750
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Useful Enemies: Islam and The Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750

by Malcolm, Noel

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Useful Enemies: Islam and The Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750
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Useful Enemies: Islam and The Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750

by Malcolm, Noel

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OUP Oxford, 02/05/2019 00:00:01. hardcover. Good. 4.3967 in x 23.9818 in x 16.1877 in.
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USEFUL ENEMIES Islam and The Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought 1450-1750

USEFUL ENEMIES Islam and The Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought 1450-1750

by MALCOLM Noel

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Oxford University Press, 2019. 9780198830139. 1st edn 2nd printing. 8vo. Original silver lettered cream cloth (Fine), dustwrapper (Fine in protective cover). Pp. xiv + 487 (previous owner's neat pencil inscription on front endpaper).
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Useful Enemies: Islam and The Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750
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Useful Enemies: Islam and The Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750

by Malcolm, Noel

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Useful Enemies: Islam and the Ottomon Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750

Useful Enemies: Islam and the Ottomon Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750

by Malcolm, Noel

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New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. Hardcover. 9 1/4" X 6 1/4". xiv, 487pp. Very mild creasing and shelf wear to covers, corners, and edges of unclipped dust jacket. Bound in beige cloth over boards with spine lettered in silver. Gentle bumps to head and tail of spine. Pages are clean and unmarked. Binding is sound. ABOUT THIS BOOK: From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the eighteenth century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. Typically they reacted to it with fear and distrust; and such feelings were reinforced by the deep hostility of Western Christendom towards Islam. Yet there was also much curiosity about the social and political system on which the huge power of the sultans was based. In the sixteenth century, especially, when Ottoman territorial expansion was rapid and Ottoman institutions seemed particularly robust, there was even open admiration. In this path-breaking book Noel Malcolm… Read more
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Useful Enemies

Useful Enemies

by Malcolm, Noel (Senior Research Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford)

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Hardback. New. New Book; Fast Shipping from UK; Not signed; Not First Edition; Based the author's Carlyle lectures, Useful Enemies explores the theme of Western ideas of Islam and the Ottoman empire across three centuries.
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Useful Enemies: Islam and The Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750

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Useful Enemies: Islam and The Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750

by Malcolm, Noel

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
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