Communications in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire

Download or read book Communications in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire written by Burçe Çelik and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2023-10-24 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: De-Westernizing the communications history of Turkey and its imperial predecessor The history of communications in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey contradicts the widespread belief that communications is a byproduct of modern capitalism and other Western forces. Burçe Çelik uses a decolonial perspective to analyze the historical commodification and militarization of communications and how it affected production and practice for oppressed populations like women, the working class, and ethnic and religious minorities. Moving from the mid-nineteenth century through today, Çelik places networks within the changing geopolitical landscape and the evolution of modern capitalism in relationship to struggles involving a range of social and political actors. Throughout, she challenges Anglo- and Eurocentric assumptions that see the non-West as an ahistorical imitation of, or aberration from, the development of Western communications. Ambitious and comprehensive, Communications in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire merges political economy with social history to challenge Western-centered assumptions about the origins and development of modern communications.