M. Talha Çiçek, Negotiating the Empire in the Middle East: Ottomans and Arab Nomads in the Modern Era, 1840-1914

Abstract

Although the Ottoman-tribal relations has been undermined to the “state-tribe” conflict, it is a sophisticated relation. Çiçek focuses on the Ottoman-tribal relations by shedding light on how the Ottoman governments treated, reacted, and negotiated with the Anizah and Shammar tribes. (These tribes were wide across in the vast geography from the south of Mardin and Urfa in Turkey to the large part of the today’s north and central Syria and Iraq.) Çiçek’s book consists of seven chapters and comprehensively covers the Ottoman state tribal relations from the beginnings of the Tanzimat to the Second Constitutional period (1840- 1914).