Children and Childhood in the Ottoman Empire

Gülay Yılmaz and Fruma Zachs’s edited volume is a welcome contribution to the field of history of children and youth in the Ottoman Empire [...] The prominence of the early modern era (with nine chapters) in the volume’s chronological focus is worth stressing, as the research on Ottoman children to date has been confined mostly to the nineteenth century. By the same token, wide geographic coverage of the book, going beyond the Balkans and Anatolia to Wallachia, Crimea, Palestine, and Egypt, has the added value of facilitating comparisons. -- Nazan Maksudyan * Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth *
Gülay Yılmaz and Fruma Zachs’s edited volume is a welcome contribution to the field of history of children and youth in the Ottoman Empire [...] The prominence of the early modern era (with nine chapters) in the volume’s chronological focus is worth stressing, as the research on Ottoman children to date has been confined mostly to the nineteenth century. By the same token, wide geographic coverage of the book, going beyond the Balkans and Anatolia to Wallachia, Crimea, Palestine, and Egypt, has the added value of facilitating comparisons. -- Nazan Maksudyan * The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth *
This volume will encourage young scholars to develop projects in the area of Ottoman and MENA childhood. The choice of themes for the five sections is well-thought-out and marks for future contributions the contours of the field. The involvement of young scholars (young PhDs mostly) alongside more established ones is an excellent recipe for pushing ahead the study of this all-important sub-field of socio-cultural history. * Ehud R. Toledano, Professor of Middle East History, Tel Aviv University *
[A] welcome contribution not only to the history of Ottoman childhoods, but also to children’s historiography and childhood history more broadly. -- Özkan Bardakçı, University of Lorraine * Diyâr. Journal of Ottoman, Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies. *