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TRAVELLERS IN OTTOMAN LANDS
THE BOTANICAL LEGACY
Edited by Ines Aščerić-Todd, Sabina Knees, Janet Starkey and Paul Starkey
Published by Archaeopress
Rrp £60, PDF also available
Order online here
Paperback, 358 pages, 2 maps, 139 colour plates
This collection of around twenty papers has its origins in a two-day seminar Travellers in Ottoman Lands: The botanical legacy (TIOL1), organised by the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE) in conjunction with the Centre for Middle Eastern Plants at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh (RBGE), with additional support from Cornucopia magazine and the Turkish Consulate General, Edinburgh. This multi-disciplinary event formed part of the Ottoman Horizons festival held in Edinburgh in 2017 and attracted a wide range of participants from around the world, including several from Turkey and other parts of the Middle East.
This splendidly illustrated book focuses on the botanical legacy of many parts of the former Ottoman Empire — including present-day Turkey, the Levant, Egypt, the Balkans, and the Arabian Peninsula — as seen and described by travellers both from within and from outside the region. The papers cover a wide variety of subjects, including Ottoman garden design and architecture; the flora of the region, especially bulbs and their cultural significance; literary, pictorial and photographic depictions of the botany and horticulture of the Ottoman lands; floral and related motifs in Ottoman art; culinary and medicinal aspects of the botanical heritage; and efforts related to conservation.
Travellers in Ottoman Lands was nominated by the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries (of North America) for their Annual Literature award in 2020. Read the review by Gerald McLean in the Bulletin of the British Association for Turkish Area Studies BATAS 33 page 56
About the Editors:
DR INES AŠČERIĆ-TODD is a Lecturer in Arabic and Middle Eastern Cultures, and Head of the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She is the South-East Europe Section Editor for the multi-volume Brill project Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History 1500–1900 (CMR1900). She has been a trustee and committee member of the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE), and an organising committee member of Travellers in Ottoman Lands: The Balkans, Anatolia and Beyond (TIOL2) and Travellers in Ottoman Lands: Places Forgotten, Places Remembered (TIOL3). Dr Aščerić-Todd is the author of Dervishes and Islam in Bosnia: Sufi Dimensions to the Formation of Bosnian Muslim Society (Brill, 2015).
DR SABINA KNEES has edited the Flora of the Arabian Peninsula and Socotra, since 2005. Before joining The Centre for Middle Eastern Plants (CMEP) at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) in 2005, Sabina was a principal editor on the European Garden Flora, and a Stanley Smith Research Fellow based at the RBGE. Sabina is a member of the Horticultural Taxonomy Group (Hortax), the IUCN SSC Arabian Plant Specialist Group and the Executive Committee of the Friends of Socotra.
DR JANET STARKEY has edited the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies since 2007. A former lecturer at Durham University, she has published extensively on travellers in the Middle East. Her most recent book, The Scottish Enlightenment Abroad: the Russells of Braidshaw in Aleppo and on the Coast of Coromandel (Leiden & Boston: Brill), was published in March 2018.
PROFESSOR PAUL STARKEY is a specialist in Arabic literature and culture, is Emeritus Professor at Durham University. He is Chairman of the Banipal Trust for Arab Literature and until 2018 was Vice-President of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES). His translation of The Book of the Sultan’s Seal by Youssef Rakha won the 2015 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, and his translation of The Shell by Mustafa Khalifa won a Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding in 2017.
TRAVELLERS IN OTTOMAN LANDS II
THE BALKANS, ANATOLIA AND BEYOND
Edited by Ines Aščerić-Todd, Aid Smajić, Janet Starkey
and Paul Starkey
Archaeopress, 2024
Enquiries and pre-orders:
The twenty-six chapters of this volume have their origins in a three-day seminar organised by the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE) in conjunction with the Faculty of Islamic Studies, University of Sarajevo, with additional support from Cornucopia magazine.
This multi-disciplinary event attracted a wide range of participants from around the world, including Europe, the United States of America, the Balkans, Türkiye and other parts of the Middle East.
This volume has a special focus on the Balkans and Anatolia, as seen and described by travellers from both within and outside the region. Much still remains to be learnt about travellers in the Ottoman Balkans, who can shed valuable light on the topics of Christian-Muslim and East-West relations, and the transition from the Ottoman Empire to successor nation-states in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The chapters cover a variety of subjects, with sections on landscapes; religion and travel; European travellers from merchants to kings; Fantasies, images and folktales; and Imperial discourse, the rise of nations, and rapportage. Contributors to the book are specialists from a range of academic disciplines and draw on a wide selection of theoretical perspectives and research methodologies.