Useful Enemies

preview-18
  • Useful Enemies Book Detail

  • Author : Noel Malcolm
  • Release Date : 2019-05-02
  • Publisher : Oxford University Press
  • Genre : History
  • Pages : 496
  • ISBN 13 : 019256580X
  • File Size : 69,69 MB

Useful Enemies by Noel Malcolm PDF Summary

Book Description: From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the eighteenth century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. Typically they reacted to it with fear and distrust; and such feelings were reinforced by the deep hostility of Western Christendom towards Islam. Yet there was also much curiosity about the social and political system on which the huge power of the sultans was based. In the sixteenth century, especially, when Ottoman territorial expansion was rapid and Ottoman institutions seemed particularly robust, there was even open admiration. In this path-breaking book Noel Malcolm ranges through these vital centuries of East-West interaction, studying all the ways in which thinkers in the West interpreted the Ottoman Empire as a political phenomenon - and Islam as a political religion. Useful Enemies shows how the concept of 'oriental despotism' began as an attempt to turn the tables on a very positive analysis of Ottoman state power, and how, as it developed, it interacted with Western debates about monarchy and government. Noel Malcolm also shows how a negative portrayal of Islam as a religion devised for political purposes was assimilated by radical writers, who extended the criticism to all religions, including Christianity itself. Examining the works of many famous thinkers (including Machiavelli, Bodin, and Montesquieu) and many less well-known ones, Useful Enemies illuminates the long-term development of Western ideas about the Ottomans, and about Islam. Noel Malcolm shows how these ideas became intertwined with internal Western debates about power, religion, society, and war. Discussions of Islam and the Ottoman Empire were thus bound up with mainstream thinking in the West on a wide range of important topics. These Eastern enemies were not just there to be denounced. They were there to be made use of, in arguments which contributed significantly to the development of Western political thought.

Disclaimer: www.yourbookbest.com does not own Useful Enemies books pdf, neither created or scanned. We just provide the link that is already available on the internet, public domain and in Google Drive. If any way it violates the law or has any issues, then kindly mail us via contact us page to request the removal of the link.

Useful Enemies

Useful Enemies

File Size : 72,72 MB
Total View : 2189 Views
DOWNLOAD

From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the eighteenth century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. Ty

Useful Enemies

Useful Enemies

File Size : 98,98 MB
Total View : 6369 Views
DOWNLOAD

Keen investigates why conflicts are so prevalent and so intractable, even when one side has much greater military resources. He asks who benefits from wars-- wh

Useful Enemies

Useful Enemies

File Size : 10,10 MB
Total View : 5747 Views
DOWNLOAD

John “Iwan” Demjanjuk was at the center of one of history’s most complex war crimes trials. But why did it take almost sixty years for the United States t

Dark Trophies

Dark Trophies

File Size : 31,31 MB
Total View : 263 Views
DOWNLOAD

Many anthropological accounts of warfare in indigenous societies have described the taking of heads or other body parts as trophies. But almost nothing is known

Useful Enemies

Useful Enemies

File Size : 75,75 MB
Total View : 5006 Views
DOWNLOAD

From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the eighteenth century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. Ty