xii|Preface
From that workshop within a conference we have pursued this edited vol-
ume, and though not all of the original participants ended up contributing to this
work, we are very grateful that several others joined us. The twenty-two chapters
in this volume represent a tremendous amount of research and insight into what
it meant to be Ottoman over the long life of the empire. It brings together a rich
mix of senior and junior scholars and represents the cutting edge in research and
methodological approaches to Ottoman studies, but it is written in an approach-
able way to make it suitable for undergraduate course adoption. Each chapter
includes substantive primary-source excerpts to allow students to engage directly
with the voices of the past. It is our hope that this volume brings the empire to life
for students in all of its ethnic, religious, linguistic, and topographical diversity
and serves as a great teaching and learning companion for classes on the Otto-
man Empire and Middle East from the thirteenth to the twentieth centuries.