The contributions to this edited volume on the Ottoman economy in the nineteenth century mostly concern the emergence of new fiscal institutions and the impact of institutional innovation and change on the financial and commercial sectors of the Ottoman economy, an economy which was, throughout the century, under severe pressure due to wars, exigencies of the European economy, and under threat from European imperialism in general. In fact, the impact of the changing international power configuration in the nineteenth century, the imperatives of war finance, and the Ottoman response in the form of state centralisation and fiscal reform form the background to all the chapters in the book. The volume brings together contributors whose work in this field has spanned many years, and thus it is a valuable stock-in-trade of the field.

In the opening chapter M. Çızakça provides a succinct outline of the tax farming system as it changed in the nineteenth century under the constant compulsion of war finance. The emphasis here is on the way the tax farm changed from being a taxation unit into an instrument of domestic borrowing, and how it served in the mobilisation of small savings with transferable shares, and how this turned in the end to the issue of treasury bonds. Ş. Pamuk's concern in the following chapter is the central state's response to budget deficits in the form of innovations through monetary reform. He examines different methods used in this effort: the debasement of the currency, the adoption of bimetallism, and finally the compromise solution of the limping gold standard. Pamuk shows how each of these solutions were bound, in the given internal and international power configuration, to raise opposition, and how the limping gold standard was an attempt by the empire to balance the interests of European financiers and traders, on the one hand, and the agrarian economy of the empire, on the other. D. M. Williams looks at the increasing importance of steam shipping, and how it led to new financial and organisational arrangements such as the establishment of a network of steamship agents in the major port towns in the eastern Mediterranean, the spread of joint-stock companies, the reduction in transaction costs due to lower levels of uncertainty and unpredictability in trade, and in general, the new speed with which financial information spread and transactions settled. Ç. Keyder focuses on the port-cities as the privileged locales where the initial impact of the European mercantile interests were transformative not only of the regional economies within the empire but also of the class relations, the rise of a mercantile bourgeoisie dominating a large number of small peasants, and in furthering the rural–urban divide.

Not surprisingly, the establishment and the role of the Imperial Ottoman Bank (IOB) and the establishment of the Public Debt Administration after the bankruptcy of the empire loom large in a series of chapters on the banking system, European investment in the empire and external borrowing (P. L. Cottrell, A. Autheman, C. Clay and J. Thobie). A joint French–British establishment, the IOB effectively served as the central bank to the empire in the second half of the century. A. Autheman surveys the foundation and workings of the bank, with due emphasis on the tension between its dual role as a state bank and as a commercial bank, the rivalries between its French and British partners and competition from other banks, most notably the Deutsche Bank. P. L. Cottrell surveys the history and nature of European investment in the empire, which although firstly mediated by the local Galata bankers, soon took on a more direct route and linked Istanbul with the financial capitals of Paris and London. One important area where direct investments were channelled was the railway projects which initially linked port-cities to their hinterlands in the colonial fashion, but later took on a more integrationist dimension with a number of railway projects that would link Istanbul to Salonica in the west and to Baghdad and Damascus in the east. C. Clay focuses on the role of the IOB in external borrowing, with a detailed account of the mechanisms and methods with which the IOB intermediated for the flow of public and private funds between Istanbul and investors in Paris and London. J. Thobie provides a rich analysis of French investments in the empire, both in terms of debt extension and in direct investments. The competition from domestic financial actors (Z. Toprak) and from other European powers, especially from Germany (B. Barth), is also dealt with in separate chapters. Z. Toprak focuses on more internal institutional developments such as the role and extent of the domestic capital market, and gives a more intimate view of the dealings of Galata bankers in Ottoman treasury bonds, corporate stocks and foreign currencies. Finally, B. Barth explores the role of the Deutsche Bank, railway financing (especially the Anatolian and Baghdad railways), and in general German investments in the empire at the turn of the twentieth century.

The general picture that emerges from the volume is one in which the Ottoman empire seems to have been partly compelled, and partly volunteered, to engage in rapid institution building in its fiscal and monetary systems at a time of considerable growth in its trade and agricultural production (although the volume neglects to look at the linkages of finance with the latter), and in its infrastructural investments in communications and transport in the nineteenth century. Yet the same processes also led to state bankruptcy in the last quarter of the century in the wake of the Great Depression. The contributions to the volume highlight the degree to which the Ottoman empire had become closely integrated to the global circuits of finance capital by the end of the nineteenth century. As such, the subject is apt and wanting for comparative analyses with other parts of the world, such as Russia, India, China or Latin America, whether in the east or in the west.