Dangerous Gifts

From Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798 to the foreign interventions in the ongoing civil wars in Syria, Yemen, and Libya today, global empires or the so-called Great Powers have long assumed the responsibility to bring security in the Middle East. The past two centuries have witnessed their numerous military occupations to 'liberate', 'secure' and 'educate' local populations. They staged first 'humanitarian' interventions in history and establishedhitherto unseen international and local security institutions. Consulting fresh primary sources collected from some thirty archives in the Middle East, Russia, the United States, and Western Europe, Dangerous Gifts revisits the late eighteenth and nineteenth century origins of these imperial securitypractices. It explicates how it all began. Why did Great Power interventions in the Ottoman Levant tend to result in further turmoil and civil wars? Why has the region been embroiled in a paradox-an ever-increasing demand despite the increasing supply of security-ever since? It embeds this highly pertinent genealogical history into an innovative and captivating narrative around the Eastern Question, emancipating the latter from the monopoly of Great Power politics, and foregrounding theexperience of the Levantine actors. It explores the gradual yet still forceful opening up of the latter's economies to global free trade, the asymmetrical implementation of international law in their perspective, and the secondary importance attached to their threat perceptions in a world where politicaland economic decisions were ultimately made through the filter of global imperial interests.

By integrating this security studies perspective within a well-known history, O"&zavcı offers a provocative challenge to how scholars will read events in larger Europe after the Congress of Vienna. Drawing from research in many underused archives, O"&zavcı provides a neatly organized, methodologically innovative account of the European Powers' emerging concerns as the Ottoman Empire transformed during its critical Tanzimat era ... this book will quickly become essential reading for graduate students in Middle Eastern studies and scholars of the Ottoman Empire., Ozavci's study combines a wealth of international archival research with methodological rigour. The central theme of the book, focusing on "security culture" among the Great Powers after the Congress of Vienna, is masterfully treated, and carefully crafted. This is a work that defines the state of the art in diplomatic history to date., Ozan Ozavci's book is a successful tour de force and a pleasant read. It is an exhaustive and erudite research conducted in several archives, which remains accessible to non-specialist readers...Such inclusive, granular as well as multi-perspective analysis, should be a scholarly reference for historians and current international politics analysts too., Dr. Ozavci has produced a wonderful example of the benefits of interdisciplinary scholarship. His impressive new book not only provides a wealth of insights into the evolution of the modern Ottoman state, but it proves innovative. By integrating a security studies perspective in a provocative manner, this book will quickly become essential reading to advanced graduate students in Middle Eastern studies and scholars of the Ottoman Empire more generally., Dangerous Gifts is a major achievement. It is an original and sophisticated account of the European Powers' interventions in Egypt, Greece and the Lebanon in the nineteenth century. It triumphantly demonstrates that these were fluid and dynamic international political crises, and reveals the agency of the Ottoman state in them in a way that previous accounts of the 'Eastern question' have been unable to do.

Ozan Ozavci is Assistant Professor of Transimperial History at Utrecht University, and associate member at the Centre d'Études Turques, Ottomanes, Balkaniques et Centrasiatiques in Paris.