This book is interesting because it offers a glimpse as to how the ruling class, Janissary Corps, peasants, ulama (religious body) and judges related to one another.... Middle-East FAOs will nonetheless find this an interesting read, and devoting time to the study of the Ottoman system is always important in gaining a truer insight into the religion.
L.T. Youssef and H. Aboul-Einein
FAO Journal
Karen Barkey, steeped in the intricacies of Ottoman linguistics as well as... new techniques of social theorization, brings her special talents to a perennial debate among early modernists who study the Middle East-how to explain the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the decades after Sulayman the Great.... She turns the question inside out stating the Ottoman Empire did not decline at all. Instead, she argues, it found new strategies of central control to meet destabilizing military, economic, and social changes.... Original, challenging, and written in crystalline prose, Barkey's book stimulates debate and encourages further research and studies.
Sixteenth Century Journal
This is a rich book that skillfully blends primary archival material with an intelligent reading of the secondary sources.
American Journal of Sociology
An important contribution to Ottoman studies.... Barkey is persuasive in showing how the structure of the Ottoman state and the mechanisms it employed deterred rebellions from various sources and bargained away potentially fatal internal conflicts.
International Journal of Middle East Studies