Awards

• Shortlisted for Longman/History Today Book of the Year Award 2014.
• Winner of Shortlisted for the Longman-History Today Award 2015.

Overview

In recent years, global historians have painted an impressionistic picture of what they call the 'connected world' of the seventeenth century. Inspired perhaps by the globalised world in which they write, scholars have emphasised how the circulation of people, objects, and ideas linked the distant reaches of the early modern world. Yet for all the advocates of such a 'connected history', we are only beginning to make sense of what global connectedness meant in practice in the lives of ordinary people.To this end, The Whispers of Cities explores interactions between early modern Europe and the Ottoman Empire through the kaleidoscope of communication. It does so by focusing on how information flows linked Istanbul, London, and Paris in the late seventeenth century. Because individuals were at the heart of communication, the book offers a micro-historical reading of the experiences of Sir William Trumbull, English ambassador to Istanbul from 1687 to 1692. It follows Trumbull as he was transformed from a civil lawyer and state official in London to a European notable at the heart of Ottoman social networks in Istanbul. In this way, The Whispers of Cities reveals how information flows between Istanbul, London, and Paris were rooted in the personal encounters that took place between Ottomans and Europeans in everyday communication. At the intersection of global history and the history of communication, therefore, the author argues that worlds of information tied Europeans to their Ottoman counterparts long before the age of modernisation, as news, stories, and even fictions transcended linguistic and confessional boundaries and connected people across Europe and the Mediterranean world. What emerges here is a picture of globalization that is as much about networks, flows, and circulation as it is about the imperfections, asymmetries, and unevenness of connectedness in the early modern world.

Full Product Details

9780199672417

Table of Contents

Reviews

New developments are underway in early modern studies. Religious and affective turns, the centrality of book history, renewed interest in networks of information and the processes of encounter are in different combinations generating new perspectives on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century worlds. John-Paul Ghobrials The Whispers of Cities brings a sensitivity to such developments focusing particularly on the connections and communication between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire to an extraordinarily rich late early modern archive and makes an innovative and valuable contribution to many of these fields. Matthew Dimmock, The Seventeenth Century This is a rewarding book and will prove a useful resource. It sheds significant new light on the processes of communication between England and the Ottoman world in the late seventeenth century. It will be of interest to historians of Anglo-Ottoman interactions, networks of knowledge, Mediterranean 'connectivity', as well as those interested in the mechanics of early modern communication more broadly. Phil McCluskey, History

Whispers of Cities is a valuable contribution to the study of European-Ottoman exchange and greater questions of global connections. * Lela Gibson, The Historian * fascinating ... Ghobrial's book provides a compelling portrait of how OttomanEuropean relations were conducted at a personal level in the seventeenth century, while demonstrating the value of reframing the history of the book as a broader history of communication. He combines close observation of fascinating and precise detail with a clear exposition of the historiographical significance of his stories. This makes the book an engrossing read, suitable not only for specialists but also for teaching advanced undergraduates and graduate students. * James E. Baldwin, English Historical Review * One of the brilliant aspects of this work is Ghobrial's ability to trace tenuous clues through little-known sources to uncover unofficial sources and even oral dialogue ... this book gives us an accomplished, fascinating, and much-needed glimpse into the heretofore unknown day-to-day functioning of European diplomacy in Istanbul. * Anna Suranyi, American Historical Review * This is a rewarding book and will prove a useful resource. It sheds significant new light on the processes of communication between England and the Ottoman world in the late seventeenth century. It will be of interest to historians of Anglo-Ottoman interactions, networks of knowledge, Mediterranean 'connectivity', as well as those interested in the mechanics of early modern communication more broadly. * Phil McCluskey, History * New developments are underway in early modern studies. Religious and affective turns, the centrality of book history, renewed interest in networks of information and the processes of encounter are in different combinations generating new perspectives on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century worlds. John-Paul Ghobrials The Whispers of Cities brings a sensitivity to such developments focusing particularly on the connections and communication between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire to an extraordinarily rich late early modern archive and makes an innovative and valuable contribution to many of these fields. * Matthew Dimmock, The Seventeenth Century *

New developments are underway in early modern studies. Religious and affective turns, the centrality of book history, renewed interest in networks of information and the processes of encounter are in different combinations generating new perspectives on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century worlds. John-Paul Ghobrials The Whispers of Cities brings a sensitivity to such developments focusing particularly on the connections and communication between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire to an extraordinarily rich late early modern archive and makes an innovative and valuable contribution to many of these fields. Matthew Dimmock, The Seventeenth Century

New developments are underway in early modern studies. Religious and affective turns, the centrality of book history, renewed interest in networks of information and the processes of encounter are in different combinations generating new perspectives on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century worlds. John-Paul Ghobrials The Whispers of Cities brings a sensitivity to such developments focusing particularly on the connections and communication between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire to an extraordinarily rich late early modern archive and makes an innovative and valuable contribution to many of these fields. Matthew Dimmock, The Seventeenth Century This is a rewarding book and will prove a useful resource. It sheds significant new light on the processes of communication between England and the Ottoman world in the late seventeenth century. It will be of interest to historians of Anglo-Ottoman interactions, networks of knowledge, Mediterranean 'connectivity', as well as those interested in the mechanics of early modern communication more broadly. Phil McCluskey, History One of the brilliant aspects of this work is Ghobrial's ability to trace tenuous clues through little-known sources to uncover unofficial sources and even oral dialogue ... this book gives us an accomplished, fascinating, and much-needed glimpse into the heretofore unknown day-to-day functioning of European diplomacy in Istanbul. Anna Suranyi, American Historical Review fascinating ... Ghobrial's book provides a compelling portrait of how OttomanEuropean relations were conducted at a personal level in the seventeenth century, while demonstrating the value of reframing the history of the book as a broader history of communication. He combines close observation of fascinating and precise detail with a clear exposition of the historiographical significance of his stories. This makes the book an engrossing read, suitable not only for specialists but also for teaching advanced undergraduates and graduate students. James E. Baldwin, English Historical Review

In The Whispers of Cities: Information Flows in Istanbul, London, and Paris in the Age of William Trumbull, Ghobrial brings this neglected mediation to the fore. * Humberto Garcia, University of California, Merced * New developments are underway in early modern studies. Religious and affective turns, the centrality of book history, renewed interest in networks of information and the processes of encounter are in different combinations generating new perspectives on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century worlds. John-Paul Ghobrials The Whispers of Cities brings a sensitivity to such developments focusing particularly on the connections and communication between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire to an extraordinarily rich late early modern archive and makes an innovative and valuable contribution to many of these fields. * Matthew Dimmock, The Seventeenth Century * This is a rewarding book and will prove a useful resource. It sheds significant new light on the processes of communication between England and the Ottoman world in the late seventeenth century. It will be of interest to historians of Anglo-Ottoman interactions, networks of knowledge, Mediterranean 'connectivity', as well as those interested in the mechanics of early modern communication more broadly. * Phil McCluskey, History * One of the brilliant aspects of this work is Ghobrial's ability to trace tenuous clues through little-known sources to uncover unofficial sources and even oral dialogue ... this book gives us an accomplished, fascinating, and much-needed glimpse into the heretofore unknown day-to-day functioning of European diplomacy in Istanbul. * Anna Suranyi, American Historical Review * fascinating ... Ghobrial's book provides a compelling portrait of how OttomanEuropean relations were conducted at a personal level in the seventeenth century, while demonstrating the value of reframing the history of the book as a broader history of communication. He combines close observation of fascinating and precise detail with a clear exposition of the historiographical significance of his stories. This makes the book an engrossing read, suitable not only for specialists but also for teaching advanced undergraduates and graduate students. * James E. Baldwin, English Historical Review * Whispers of Cities is a valuable contribution to the study of European-Ottoman exchange and greater questions of global connections. * Lela Gibson, The Historian *

Author Information

John-Paul A. Ghobrial is a University Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Balliol College. He studied at Tufts, Oxford, and Princeton, and he has also taught at the University of Cambridge. He is an historian of the Middle East with a special interest in exchanges between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. He is currently working on The Secret Life of Elias of Babylon, a microhistory of the adventures and writings of an Eastern Christian globetrotter in the seventeenth century.

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