This collaborative volume focuses on imagined geography and the relationships among power, knowledge, and space. A sequel to Imperial Geographies in Byzantine and Ottoman Space, Imagined Geographies in the Mediterranean, Middle East, and Beyond shares with its predecessor a strong focus on the role of empire and ideas of space viewed in inter-regional and interdisciplinary terms. Both volumes bring together specialists on history, art history, literature, and theater studies, but the present volume covers an even wider geography than the first. In addition to the core provinces of Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, it also includes connections between these regions and others further away—notably Iran, Inner Asia, and the Indian Ocean. The essays collected here suggest that the phenomenon of imagined geographies is essentially discursive in nature, since Self and Other may only be defined relative to one another.

"Imperial Geographies in Byzantine and Ottoman Space" opens new and insightful vistas on the nexus between empire and geography. The volume redirects attention from the Atlantic to the space of the eastern Mediterranean shaped by two empires of remarkable duration and territorial extent, the Byzantine and the Ottoman. The essays offer a diachronic and comparative account that spans the medieval and early modern periods and reaches into the nineteenth century. Methodologically rich, the essays combine historical, literary, and theoretical perspectives. Through texts as diverse as court records and chancery manuals, imperial treatises and fictional works, travel literature and theatrical adaptations, the essays explore ways in which the production of geographical knowledge supported imperial authority or revealed its precarious mastery of geography.

Ottoman historical writing of the 15th and 16th centuries played a significant role in fashioning Ottoman identity and institutionalizing the dynastic state structure during this period of rapid imperial expansion. This volume shows how the writing of history achieved these effects by examining the implicit messages conveyed by the texts and illustrations of key manuscripts. It answers such questions as how the Ottomans understood themselves within their court and in relation to non-Ottoman others; how they visualized the ideal ruler; how they defined their culture and place in the world; and what the significance of Islam was in their self-definition.