@article{article_614181, title={Beshara B. Doumani. Family Life in the Ottoman Mediterranean: A Social History}, journal={Divan: Disiplinlerarası Çalışmalar Dergisi}, volume={24}, year={2019}, DOI={10.20519/divan.614181}, author={Temel, Şeyma Nur}, keywords={Ottoman History,Mediterranean Social History}, abstract={<div>Beshara Doumani’s book deals with the family dynamics in the Ottoman </div> <div>Arab lands before the Western hegemony ruled over there, focusing on </div> <div>“three of the areas usually ignored in the scholarship: provincial regions, </div> <div>the middle centuries of the Ottoman rule, and middling propertied urban </div> <div>groups.” (p. 39) Challenging “big isms” such as Orientalism or Islamism, </div> <div>he aims at historicizing family in Nablus and Tripoli in order to offer a new </div> <div>and better frame for family, gender and property of this time and freeing </div> <div>them from stereotypes. The relatively large time period of this study is two </div> <div>centuries spanning from 1660 to 1860 on the ground that “family life is </div> <div>best measured by generations, not decades.” (p. 40) The author primarily </div> <div>relies on the Ottoman court records and utilizes stories of people derived </div> <div>from these records as the skeleton of the chapters. To him, these registers </div> <div>create a “communal textual memory,” therefore worthy of attention of not </div> <div>only legalists, but also of social historians to delve into daily life of ordinary </div> <div>individuals. </div>}, number={46}, publisher={Bilim ve Sanat Vakfı}