Age of Rogues

In a stunning collection, the editors Öztan and Yenen not only expertly steer an otherwise disparate set of authors writing on seemingly very different themes, historic trajectories, and locales, they also masterfully conjoin this volume to serve as one of our generation’s best exemplars of scholarship on the late Ottoman Empire. A highly readable collection of cutting-edge research on agents of change along the fringes of both the Ottoman and larger modern world, this book must be considered an addition to the library of all serious scholars, and a candidate for their graduate seminars. I most enthusiastically recommend this invaluable new addition to the scholarship. * Isa Blumi, Professor of Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies, Stockholm University *
This fascinating volume brings together a wide range of case studies of ground-level political violence in the frontier zones of the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Middle East in an era of imperial disintegration. The collection’s detailed exploration of the multifarious figures – brought together here under the label of ‘rogues’ – engaged in an often-violent politics of transgression offers a new and compelling case for the importance of apparently marginal actors, acting outside the state, to the process of imperial disintegration. Further, it traces how such ‘rogues’ gradually made their way into the structures of nationalism emerging before and after the First World War and eventually came to constitute central figures in institutions of postwar governance, installing their often-anarchic sense of political strategy into structures of statehood and nationalism from Macedonia to Iran. In its timely analysis of the politics of transgression, then, this volume is a crucial addition not just to the conversation about how these empires disintegrated but also to the analysis of the fractured and violent nation-states that replaced them. * Laura Robson, Oliver-McCourtney Professor of History, The Pennsylvania State University *
Age of Rogues is a rich and original work dedicated to one of the most compelling issues within late imperial history: how did outlaws and rebels reflect and influence the development of modern states and society? Through a rich of array of case studies spanning the Caucasus, Balkans and Middle East, this volume offers important insights into how would-be revolutionaries and common brigands helped shape the nature of borders, governments, and provincial communities between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Each chapter of this work exemplifies the most current research into the global and local factors that gave birth to this period of violence and upheaval. As a study dedicated to a bottom-up understanding of the late Ottoman and Russian empires, Age of Rogues clearly sets new benchmarks for students and scholars alike. * Ryan Gingeras, Professor in the Department of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School *
Ramazan Hakkı Öztan and Alp Yenen have assembled a wonderful gallery of rebels, revolutionaries and racketeers—extraordinary characters located at the margins of imperial power. The stories presented here, of colourful personalities operating in dramatic contexts, make fascinating reading while the scholarship is of the highest quality. A fine book. * Stephanie Cronin, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford *