Küçük's work is an erudite and engaging exploration of the scientific and academic life of Istanbul in the early modern period. Following the lives and careers of various scholars, Küçük provides a clear and lucid view of the academic profession in the Ottoman capital in a period of what has often been characterized as ‘decline’. The approach to the concept of decline, however, differs very considerably from more traditional uses of the term. Instead of focusing on a competitive framework between a nebulous ascendant Europe and an increasingly decrepit Ottoman other, Küçük instead emphasizes long-term economic trends. In particular, the book highlights the impact of inflation on the incomes of scholars, whose salaries were dictated either by vaqf endowments or by imperial decrees unchanged over decades in defiance of financial reality. By foregrounding the fiscal limitations put upon Istanbulite scholars and scientific practitioners, Science without Leisure provides a new lens with which scholars can examine the processes and conceptualizations of Ottoman decline. Küçük is rightly justified in making comparisons with the issues of the modern higher-education system, confronting directly potential accusations of presentism. Istanbulite scholars were therefore forced to earn money through a variety of trades attached to their learning, particularly medicine, timekeeping and production of scientific instruments.

This volume presents a further innovation by considering Istanbul as a separate entity within the Ottoman Empire, rather than as an exemplar of a wider whole. By interrogating the production of scientific works, in terms of their number, content and originality, scholars are presented with another tool in understanding scientific innovation. This is achieved by examining the number and content of works produced in Istanbul during this period. These are found to be few in number and dedicated to solely practical, rather than experimental or theoretical, topics. The book therefore presents a localized shift away from theory and towards applied ‘natural’ science. This approach is ripe for application elsewhere, whether in European or in other centres of learning that went through a decline. The book presents the example of Venice, which systematically reduced the salaries of its scholarly elite. Küçük explains that he intends to engage only ‘playfully’ with European scientific conditions, thus there is little discussion of how these were markedly different from the ‘unleisured’ scholars of Istanbul. This again is a point for future engagement and development, especially given that the unleisured model would seem to have been normative. Newton, for most of his career, had to work either teaching for a small stipend or at the Royal Mint and so his leisured life would have been severely limited by his means and time. This could have been remedied somewhat by a more rigorous approach to economic historical principles regarding the indexing of prices of goods and purchasing power, especially when considering the rates of pay outside the Ottoman Empire. However, the close study of academic pay, conditions and approaches in Istanbul makes a comparison or a synthetic approach to similar conditions elsewhere much easier in future.

The book is divided into chapters which each focus on a particular branch or facet of scientific enquiry in Istanbul. While broadly chronological, the book's chapters also encapsulate the major historiographical interventions being made in a range of accessible narratives. Küçük challenges a number of previously held orthodoxies about science in the Ottoman Empire, including the broad conception of the idea of ‘Islamic science’ as a methodological and historiographical category. The robust and considered approach to this historiographical tool is characteristic of Küçük's thoughtful and authoritative approach to the themes with which he engages. Chapters 1, 2 and 3 provide an overview of the practices of science in Istanbul leading up to and through the chronological scope of the volume. This highlights the slow shifting of academic scholarship from a lucrative profession with possible outlets within the law, medicine, astronomy and astrology, to one where such posts could no longer support the holder. Chapters 4, 5 and 8 explore the professions and careers adopted by Istanbulite scholars following their education. While the career areas remained the same, unlike the earlier period, these scholars worked as private individuals rather than being supported and appointed by the state.

Chapter 7 focuses on the careers of a number of individuals who made notable contributions to science and science production in the city. Yirmisekiz and Mutferrika in particular provide interesting case studies. Both saw European technological advancements, especially in printing and experimentation, and sought to emulate and replicate both the outcomes and the processes. Printing provides possibly the most important difference between the European and Ottoman scientific fields. In Europe, cheap printed copies of fundamental scientific texts, by such as Galen, Aristotle or Ptolemy, were available to anyone, both in Latin and increasingly in local vernaculars. In Istanbul, public collections of texts were rare and relied on the costly and time-consuming reproduction of manuscripts, thereby denying most scholars access to them; similarly, these texts tended to be Arabic translations of the Greek original, adding a further linguistic barrier. Fundamental texts were therefore unavailable to increasingly poor Ottoman students who could not gain a grounding in the scientific enquiry of the Aristotelian tradition, in a sense cutting them off from the theoretical fields being explored by European scholars.

Küçük's engaging and insightful approach to the history of scientific production serves to open up major new fields of enquiry, while providing a range of equally useful approaches to aid further studies.