Negotiating Empire in the Middle East

In the early 1840s, Ottoman rulers launched a new imperial project, partly in order to reassert their authority over their lands and subjects, crucially including the Arab nomads. By examining the evolution of this relationship between the Ottoman Empire and Arab nomads in the modern era, M. Talha Çiçek puts forward a new framework to demonstrate how negotiations between the Ottomans and the Arab nomads played a part in making the modern Middle East. Reflecting on multiple aspects of Ottoman authority and governance across Syria, Iraq, Arabia, Transjordan and along their frontiers, Çiçek reveals how the relationship between the imperial centre and the nomads was not merely a brutal imposition of a strict order, but instead one of constant, complicated, and fluid negotiation. In so doing, he highlights how the responses of the nomads made a considerable impact on the ultimate outcome, transforming the imperial policies accordingly.

'It is usually assumed that the relations of nomads and the Ottoman state were a one-way street: the state ordered and the tribes revolted or obeyed. Talha Çiçek's book shows us that the reality was much more ambivalent and interesting. This book is a pioneering exposition of a fascinating and complicated relationship between the Ottoman state and the Arab nomads in the 19th century.' Selim Deringil, Lebanese American University, 'Çiçek's fine study of the relations between the Ottoman government and major Arab nomadic groups lies at the cross-section of two booming fields: historical work on Bedouins and theoretical debates imperial centers and peripheries. Set in a wider comparative perspective and tapping into unused archival records, Çiçek offers important new perspectives.' Ulrike Freitag, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, 'This exemplary study based on impeccable archival research and exhaustive grasp of historical developments provides a fresh perspective on post-Tanzimat Ottoman policies regarding Arab nomads. It successfully demonstrates that the Ottoman center adopted a flexible and negotiable policy instead of a rigid principle with only one means of implementation vis-à-vis its tribal populations.' M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Princeton University, '… a welcome addition to several overlapping empirical and theoretical fields … Highly recommended.' R. A. Miller, Choice Connect

M. Talha Çiçek is Associate Professor of History at Istanbul Medeniyet University. Formerly the British Academy's Newton Fellow at SOAS University of London, and Humboldt Experienced Research Fellow at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, he is the author of War and State Formation in Syria: Cemal Pasha's Governorate during World War I (2014).