James Grehan, "Empire of Manners: Ottoman Sociability and War-Making in the Long Eighteenth Century" (Stanford UP, 2025)

James Grehan, "Empire of Manners: Ottoman Sociability and War-Making in the Long Eighteenth Century" (Stanford UP, 2025)

From New Books in Turkish Studies by New Books Network

October 17, 2025 · 36 min

About this episode

Dr. James Grehan discusses his book on the interplay between manners and war-making in the eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire.

It is easy to believe that manners are empty gestures, little more than social artifice or practiced etiquette whose sole purpose is to project civility and facilitate social interaction. But if we look more closely, they can tell us much more than we might first suppose, revealing what conventional accounts of state, economy, and religion often ignore. With Empire of Manners: Ottoman Sociability and War-Making in the Long Eighteenth Century (Stanford UP, 2025), Dr. James Grehan offers a panoramic view of manners and sociability across the eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire, from the Balkans to the Middle East to North Africa. Studying chronicles, biographical dictionaries, and travel accounts, he throws new light on the inner dynamics of Ottoman society during a transitional period in Ottoman history which has too often been misunderstood. Empire of Manners proposes a new way of thinking about the history of manners, arguing that violence and war-making, as much as civility and etiquette, have a central role in shaping them. The eighteenth century proved to be a turning point in this paradoxical relationship between violence and manners as war-making turned into a substantially…

More episodes of New Books in Turkish Studies

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the New Books in Turkish Studies podcast page.