Inspired by John Maynard Keynes’ famous characterization of “practical men [as] the slaves of some defunct economist” (qtd. on p. 2), Economics and Capitalism in the Ottoman Empire looks into the Ottoman “defunct economist”—the intellectuals of the late nineteenth century who studied, learned, discussed, and, perhaps more importantly, taught economics. Kılınçoğlu’s book offers the most elaborate account to date of the discussion of economic matters among intellectuals of the Hamidian era. It is in-depth, well researched, and, at times, bold.

The overarching aim of the book is to examine “how the nineteenth-century classical political economy and bourgeois economic values permeated into sociocultural and political spheres and influenced late nineteenth-century Ottoman modernization” (p. 2). Several substantive reasons are suggested for specifically bringing the Hamidian era into focus. First, it was “the most prolific era” (p. 2) of Ottoman economic thought. Second, economics served as the common denominator, since a variety of otherwise different intellectuals and statesmen all viewed economic development as an indispensable part of Ottoman modernization. Finally, the period was obviously framed by one particular sultan (Abdülhamid II, r. 1876–1909) and his regime. It would also have been useful for the author to point out that the late nineteenth century presents a suitable time frame for such an analysis because at the time, like anyone on the periphery, Ottoman intellectuals faced the unique problems of global capitalism: the international economic order was being confronted by the challenge of the late industrializers in various parts of the world, thus bringing up alternative views of capitalist development, and particularly of state-market relationships—an alternative to the free trade orthodoxy the British had long championed. This unique context had a great bearing on economic debates, which seems slightly understated in the book.

The book is primarily concerned with a subset of intellectuals. “Conservatives” are left out, and the author also points out that, in the text, liberals “may have remained in the shadows, compared to protectionists”, since his coverage criteria are “originality and popular influence” (p. 8). He also states that while “textbooks and university professors were almost exclusively liberal, among the public intellectuals who wrote on economic issues […] the most influential were protectionists” (p. 8). However, the author’s slightly muted discussion of the chosen criteria implies that “originality” is a measure of the shift away from Smithian liberalism, which perforce makes any idea along the lines of German historicism original and authentic. The book thus necessarily pays much less attention to liberals.

Two methodological concerns are underlined. First, Kılınçoğlu views Ottoman modernization as a “continuous evolutionary process,” and for this reason places “Hamidian-era intellectuals and ideas in their historical context and in dialogue with those of the preceding and succeeding eras” (p. 5). This stance obviously favors intellectual continuities and resonances at the expense of ruptures and contextual differences. Second, the author is concerned about the conventional view that the ideas of Ottoman economists were “merely caricatures of European theories” (p. 6). However, he also argues that imitation is a part of any intellectual activity: what really matters is the intellectual pragmatism shared by the Ottoman intellectuals aiming to “transplant European economic knowledge into their own cultural and intellectual setting […] using the instruments of a new discipline” (p. 6). Thus, it was inevitable that “inexperience, imitation of previous examples, confusion, and other ills” would accompany the “originalities of first attempts” (p. 6).

Chapter 1 begins with a discussion of post-Smithian influences before the Hamidian era. The pre-existing dominant economic mentality—i.e., provisionism, fiscalism, and traditionalism, as described by Mehmet GençFootnote ¹ —had been challenged by an Ottoman elite that was increasingly questioning existing institutions in the face of the rise of Europe. The new economic ideas came, in the first place, through the diplomatic reports and travelogues of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, and subsequently, in the 1840s, through newspapers, such as the French edition of Takvim-i Vekayi, the empire’s official gazette, and Ceride-i Havadis. This early period already set out the main debate that would animate the upcoming age: “‘agricultural vs. industrialization development’ and ‘liberalism vs. protectionism’” (p. 24). The first books on economics appeared in the 1850s, but they were mostly short and were unfaithful translations. It was in the next two decades that the popularization of economics would truly take place.

Chapter 2 presents the core of the research material, starting with the 1880s. Looking at various sources, from textbooks to popular manuals, the chapter offers a detailed account of what the author calls the “Ottomanization” of economics; i.e., the transplantation of new ideas. The central figures in the discussion are Sakızlı Ohannes and Ahmed Midhat, who produced the “standard references” (p. 42) for the following generations: the former represented classical political economy, while the latter rejected the “liberal assumption for universal laws of economics,” thus implicitly defending a historical approach” (p. 48).

Chapter 3 describes the adoption of historicist views of economics and society, in tune with contemporary European currents that assigned top priority to economic development and industrialization. This, however, was something that could not be achieved without “building a modern society consisting of educated, industrious, and (economically) rational male and female citizens,” as was argued by Münif Pasha (p. 115). It was in this connection that Ahmed Midhat brought up the idea of cooperation and that, later, Sebahattin Bey would propose a model of entrepreneurship and individualism.

The question of development models is dealt with in the subsequent chapter. Here, Kılınçoğlu detects “the emergence of Muslim-Turkish economic proto-nationalism” (p. 128) and protectionism in the Young Ottoman literature of the 1870s, mainly in the writings of Ziya Pasha, Ali Suavi, and Namık Kemal. These proto-nationalist ideas originated from the failure of early attempts at industrialization, the financial crisis of the late century, the resulting foreign influence, Muslim indifference to commerce, and the increasing economic influence of non-Muslims in the empire.

The final substantive chapter, which actually complements Chapter 3, studies economics in fiction through a reading of popular works by Ahmed Midhat and Mizancı Murat. Here, it is argued that fiction served as a tool to educate readers about a new set of economic values, specifically the homo economicus that embodied cooperation, division of labor, hard work, diligence, and rational thinking—all standing in contrast to the homo ottomanicus characterized by Ahmed Midhat.

The book concludes by emphasising its main argument: “the issue of the salvation of the empire […] was tightly linked to the question of economic development and an accompanying societal transformation in capitalist terms” (p. 193). Moreover, as the author points out, “the material and intellectual roots of the solidarist and corporatist economic ideology of the Young Turks […] rest in the second half of the nineteenth century” (p. 195).

It is crucial to point out that Kılınçoğlu’s thorough exposition of the first argument mentioned above brings economics back to the table as far as nineteenth-century intellectual history and the overall historiography are concerned. It appears that the notorious “how to save the empire” paradigm dominant at the time had a crucial yet still not well understood aspect: Ottoman intellectuals were in close contact with contemporary economic ideas, from David Ricardo and Jean-Baptiste Say to Thomas Robert Malthus and the German historicism, an effort that was a part of the larger immediate political and intellectual agenda. Economics was an essential element of their intellectual activities, even though the means through which their goals could be achieved were understood differently by different wings of Ottoman reformism.

On the other hand, the author’s methodological choices inevitably lead to important questions. Focusing on intellectual continuities and similarities over the course of half a century makes it difficult to fully contextualize the Young Ottoman and Young Turk economic ideology. Therefore, the author runs the risk of missing the crucial moments in the final shaping of economic ideas. For instance, the book’s narrative seems a bit blurry as to when exactly proto-nationalist elements took the shape of Muslim or Turkish nationalism or when cosmopolitan intellectual elements went away: was it a linear process of adoption of Ottoman, Muslim, and Turkish ideologies/proto-nationalism, three major terms that are often used interchangeably in the book? In order to clarify this question, the author might consider developing a constructive dialogue with Eyüp Özveren’s definitive remark that, by the end of World War I, “what had started off as an indigenous naïve experimentation with an alternative approach [i.e., alternative to the free trade orthodoxy] was […] consciously anchored to the domain of European scholarship.”Footnote ² One gets the impression that the author assumes the increasingly nationalist economic ideology that emerged after 1908 was almost inevitable. In other words, the author takes the beginning of economic nationalism back a few decades further than is usually done, thus challenging the historiography.

Similarly, when it is argued that Ahmed Midhat and his fellow reformist intellectuals paved the way for the post-1908 national economy program (Milli İktisat) and the nation-building project of the early Republic of Turkey, the distinction between ideas and policies disappears. At the end of the day, the emergence of protectionism, or economic nationalism, as an idea is one thing, while the implementation of Milli İktisat as a policy framework is another. One naturally hopes to see a more detailed discussion on the interaction between economic ideas and policies, and as such some historians are likely to be uncomfortable with some of the bolder arguments raised in the book; thus, we can expect to see further salvos on these issues. Nevertheless, Kılınçoğlu’s book will prove to be an essential reference work in the upcoming debates on Ottoman economic thought.