Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915

The city on the Tigris River in southeastern Turkey has often been treated as a peripheral element in histories centering on Istanbul, but the historians and social scientists here place it at the center of their attention. Focusing on the final decades of the Ottoman Empire, with an introductory sketch of what went before, they explore Milli Ibrahim Pasa, Ziya Gokalp, and political struggle; the Armenian crisis of 1895; state, tribe, dynasty and the contest over Diyarbekir; land disputes in peasant petitions in post-revolutionary Diyarbekir; a preliminary investigation of some primary sources on Syriac Christians in the late 19th century; relations between Kurds and Syriacs and Assyrians; and Armenians and Kurds in the Young Turk era 1915-25. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Joost Jongerden is Assistant Professor at Sociology and Anthropology of Development of Wageningen University, the Netherlands. His research interests include socio-spatial analyses of the Kurdish issue in Turkey. He is co-editor of Nationalisms and Politics in Turkey (Routledge, 2011). Jelle Verheij is an independent researcher, specializing in the history and geography of Eastern Turkey and the late Ottoman Empire. He has published several articles on Armenian-Ottoman and Kurdish-Ottoman relations before World War I.