Living in the Ottoman Realm brings the Ottoman Empire to life in all of its ethnic, religious, linguistic, and geographic diversity. The contributors explore the development and transformation of identity over the long span of the empire's existence. They offer engaging accounts of individuals, groups, and communities by drawing on a rich array of primary sources, some available in English translation for the first time. These materials are examined with new methodological approaches to gain a deeper understanding of what it meant to be Ottoman. Designed for use as a course text, each chapter includes study questions and suggestions for further reading.

This book uses the stories of early modern women in the Mediterranean who left their birthplaces, families, and religions to reveal the complex space women of the period occupied socially and politically.

In the narrow sense, the word "renegade" as used in the early modern Mediterranean referred to a Christian who had abandoned his or her religion to become a Muslim. With "Renegade Women," Eric R Dursteler deftly redefines and broadens the term to include anyone who crossed the era's and region's religious, political, social, and gender boundaries. Drawing on archival research, he relates three tales of women whose lives afford great insight into both the specific experiences and condition of females in, and the broader cultural and societal practices and mores of, the early Mediterranean.

Through Beatrice Michiel of Venice, who fled an overbearing husband to join her renegade brother in Constantinople and took the name Fatima Hatun, Dursteler discusses how women could convert and relocate in order to raise their personal and familial status. In the parallel tales of the Christian Elena Civalelli and the Muslim Mihale Satorovic, who both entered a Venetian convent to avoid unwanted, arranged marriages, he finds courageous young women who used the frontier between Ottoman and Venetian states to exercise a surprising degree of agency over their lives. And in the actions of four Muslim women of the Greek island of Milos--Aisse, her sisters Emine and Catige, and their mother, Maria--who together left their home for Corfu and converted from Islam to Christianity to escape Aisse's emotionally and financially neglectful husband, Dursteler unveils how a woman's attempt to control her own life ignited an international firestorm that threatened Venetian-Ottoman relations.

A truly fascinating narrative of female instrumentality, "Renegade Women" illuminates the nexus of identity and conversion in the early modern Mediterranean through global and local lenses. Scholars of the period will find this to be a richly informative and thoroughly engrossing read.

This book uses the stories of early modern women in the Mediterranean who left their birthplaces, families, and religions to reveal the complex space women of the period occupied socially and politically.

In the narrow sense, the word "renegade" as used in the early modern Mediterranean referred to a Christian who had abandoned his or her religion to become a Muslim. With "Renegade Women," Eric R Dursteler deftly redefines and broadens the term to include anyone who crossed the era's and region's religious, political, social, and gender boundaries. Drawing on archival research, he relates three tales of women whose lives afford great insight into both the specific experiences and condition of females in, and the broader cultural and societal practices and mores of, the early Mediterranean.

Through Beatrice Michiel of Venice, who fled an overbearing husband to join her renegade brother in Constantinople and took the name Fatima Hatun, Dursteler discusses how women could convert and relocate in order to raise their personal and familial status. In the parallel tales of the Christian Elena Civalelli and the Muslim Mihale Satorovic, who both entered a Venetian convent to avoid unwanted, arranged marriages, he finds courageous young women who used the frontier between Ottoman and Venetian states to exercise a surprising degree of agency over their lives. And in the actions of four Muslim women of the Greek island of Milos--Aisse, her sisters Emine and Catige, and their mother, Maria--who together left their home for Corfu and converted from Islam to Christianity to escape Aisse's emotionally and financially neglectful husband, Dursteler unveils how a woman's attempt to control her own life ignited an international firestorm that threatened Venetian-Ottoman relations.

A truly fascinating narrative of female instrumentality, "Renegade Women" illuminates the nexus of identity and conversion in the early modern Mediterranean through global and local lenses. Scholars of the period will find this to be a richly informative and thoroughly engrossing read.

Moving beyond the "clash of civilizations" model that surveys the relationship between Islam and Christianity from a geopolitical perch, historian Eric R Dursteler focuses on a localized microcosm: the Venetian merchant and diplomatic community in Muslim Constantinople. Although dissonance and strife were certainly part of this relationship, he argues, coexistence and cooperation were more common.

While such factors as religion, culture, and political status could be integral elements in constructions of self and community, Dursteler finds that the fluidity and malleability of identity in the early modern world made coexistence among disparate cultures possible.

"The introduction to this book is dazzling... The Venetian community in Constantinople provides an excellent site for exploration of issues of nation and identity... [Dursteler's] overall intention -- to demonstrate cultural diversity in a place and era that has been commonly assumed to lack it -- remains firmly at the fore, and he admirably fulfills his task." -- American Historical Review

"This is a boundary-busting book... Dursteler is to be commended for this insightful and gracefully written work that delivers a powerful message in brief compass, and will help change the way we consider European-Ottoman relations in the early modern era and perhaps West and non-West relations in our own." -- Renaissance Quarterly

"A significant contribution to new understandings of national, ethnic, and religious relations in the past, with clear explanations of common assumptions and frameworks for fluid identities and border-crossings." -- Renaissance Studies

"A rich body of interesting and colorful information... Animportant contribution to our understanding of the complex Mediterranean world of the early modern period." -- Sixteenth Century Journal

Eric R Dursteler is an associate professor of history at Brigham Young University.

Living in the Ottoman Realm brings the Ottoman Empire to life in all of its ethnic, religious, linguistic, and geographic diversity. The contributors explore the development and transformation of identity over the long span of the empire's existence. They offer engaging accounts of individuals, groups, and communities by drawing on a rich array of primary sources, some available in English translation for the first time. These materials are examined with new methodological approaches to gain a deeper understanding of what it meant to be Ottoman. Designed for use as a course text, each chapter includes study questions and suggestions for further reading.