Niccolo Capponi. Victory of the West: The Great Christian-Muslim Clash at the Battle of Lepanto. Da Capo Press (Perseus Books Group), 2007. 448 pages, index. Cloth US$27.50 ISBN 13: 978-0-306-81544-7

Abstract

system, changes in trade routes, migration and settlement, and the demands of war financing affected urban elites, but that story cannot be written yet. What Canbakal does superbly is to dissect the elite itself. Chapter two defines askeri status. More than the military or ruling class, it also included auxiliary troops, those who performed state services or received stipends, the tax-exempt, and descendants of the Prophet. These groups formed almost a third of the population. One way to become askeri was to hold a government position, and competition for posts becomes an important topic. These posts permitted 'Ayntab residents to participate in local administration and fostered loyalty to the Ottoman state. The next chapter analyzes wealth through probate inventories. Status did not guarantee wealth but correlated with it. About twenty percent of 'Ayntab's population was wealthy; the rest had modest means, and there was no middle group. Chapter five uses the roles of elites in the shari'a court to investigate elite influence. Elites were not only more successful than ordinary people in pressing their own claims, they also dominated the processes that verified the claims of others. Elites served as witnesses, both witnessing court proceedings and testifying to the probity of claimants or to standard practices. Judgment in the community depended on a network of probity maintained by community leaders. Appearance as a court witness joins titles and appointments as a status indicator. The final chapter examines elite representation of others. There was an overlap of eighty percent between court witnesses and those awarded guardianship of orphans. The overlap was even greater between witnesses and ivaqf trustees, especially trustees of avanz waqfs, neighborhood endowments. Decisions on the use of these funds were made by the "people" (ahali) of the neighborhood. The issue of who constituted the "people" concludes the book. Elite individuals were required to make guarantees on behalf of the population as a whole, and it is they who were called ahali, not the population at large. When residents of 'Ayntab acted politically in defiance of elites, they were called outlaws. Canbakal concludes that there was a domain recognized by the state where elites "represented and constituted the urban collectivity" (p. 183). She sees nineteenth-century reform as an outgrowth of this concept rather than a rejection of it and ends by calling for greater attention to internal Ottoman political traditions. This book constitutes an important analytical advance in the study of Ottoman politics. It is not an easy read or a classroom text; it lacks the anecdotal richness that makes urban history fun to read or the historical motion provided by great events and significant individuals. But it marks a major step forward in the "politics of notables," highlighting the politics of domination within provincial society rather than solely between society and state. Linda T. Darling University of Arizona