Disliking Others: Loathing, Hostility, and Distrust in Pre-Modern Ottoman Lands

The economic and social stability of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th century led to what is widely believed to be a "Pax Ottomanica" in which trade and the arts flourished and peaceful coexistence reigned. However, the works collected in Disliking Others encourage a closer consideration of this idyllic historical moment. By exploring patterns in expressions of dislike in literature, historiography, religious texts, and memoirs and other personal accounts, the volume provides rare insight into the perspectives of individual Ottoman subjects and the social, religious, and ethnic groups to which they belonged. In doing so, the collection seeks to reconstruct the mind-set of broad groups of people in Ottoman lands in order to illustrate how prejudice, distrust, and mutual antipathy were still a prevalent force despite prosperity. Contributors consider the role of religion as an influencing force, whether political propaganda stoked distrust, and how class and gender distinctions might have fostered antipathies. Disliking Others shows how an understanding of Ottoman alterophobia, or the irrational dislike of other groups within one's society, provides a more nuanced understanding of that complex society.