Dr Fred Anscombe
Research interests* Teaching interests* Publications* Areas of research supervision* Contact details
Research interests
My research interests lie in the history of the Ottoman empire and post-Ottoman states, ranging from the late seventeenth to twentieth centuries. While I have strong interest in Ottoman imperial history, I have found it helpful to break away from the traditional focus upon the centre, looking instead at Balkan and Arab provincial history to see if and how the sultan’s subjects were affected by, and reacted to, politics and policies of the centre. Currently I am working on several related projects, including a long-term study of political, economic and social transformations in Albanian provinces from the late seventeenth to early twentieth centuries, and of the roles played by Albanians throughout the empire. The project challenges anachronistic ethno-national assumptions which still colour current views of the Ottoman period, including the persistent paradigm that treats the Ottoman period as ‘x centuries of darkness for nation y’ and the common perception that ‘Ottoman’ and ‘Turkish’ are synonyms. As I have worked on this project, I have developed an increasing interest in Islam, not only as a religion but as a force in daily life and imperial politics that is too often discounted by scholars today; I hope to finish soon a manuscript on religion and politics in late Ottoman and post-Ottoman states. In line with this perception of current depictions of the past, I am also interested in Ottoman historiography and its subservience to nation-building and other modern agendas.
Teaching interests
Modern European and Middle Eastern history: Modern European History from 1800; Empire, State and Nation; Ottoman Empire and Successor States; Arab-Israeli Question; Politics and Islam
Publications
The Ottoman Gulf: The Creation of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, Columbia University Press, 1997
Editor, The Ottoman Balkans, 1750-1830, Markus Wiener Press, 2006
‘Islam in the Age of Ottoman Reform’, Past & Present (forthcoming)
‘Continuities in Ottoman Centre-Periphery Relations, 1787-1915’, in The Frontiers of the Ottoman World, ed. Andrew Peacock (Oxford University Press, forthcoming)
‘Bahrayn, Modern History’, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd edn. (Brill, forthcoming)
‘The Ottoman Role in the Gulf, 1550-1914’, in The Persian Gulf in History, ed. Lawrence Potter (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2008)
‘The Politics of Islam’, The Journal of Contemporary History XLII (2007), 555-64
‘The Ottoman Empire in Modern International Politics—I: The Case of Kuwait’, The International History Review, XXVIII (2006), 537-59
‘The Ottoman Empire in Modern International Politics—II: The Case of Kosovo’, The International History Review, XXVIII (2006), 758-93
‘Albanians and “Mountain Bandits”’, The Princeton Papers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Near Eastern Studies XIII (2006), 87-114; reprinted in Frederick Anscombe (ed.), The Ottoman Balkans, 1750-1830
‘An official report on efforts to re-establish Ottoman control over Kuwait, 1870’, and ‘Six Ottoman documents on the power of guilds in the Balkans, 1760s’, annotated translations of Ottoman documents in The Modern Middle East Sourcebook, ed. Camron Amin et al. (Oxford University Press, 2005)
‘An a-National Society: Eastern Arabia in the Ottoman Period’, in Transnational Connections: The Arab Gulf and Beyond, ed. Madawi al-Rasheed (Routledge, 2004)
Areas of research supervision
Subjects involving the Ottoman empire, Balkans, Middle East, inter-communal relations, empires and nationalism.
Contact details
Email: f.anscombe@bbk.ac.uk
Tel: 020 7631 6272
Room: 272 (Malet Street)