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A Global History of Ottoman Cotton Textiles, 1600-1850
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1830-7728
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EUI MWP; 2007/30
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GEKAS, Athanasios, A Global History of Ottoman Cotton Textiles, 1600-1850, EUI MWP, 2007/30 - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/8132
Abstract
This paper arises from the project on "Cotton textiles as a global industry, 1200-1800",
carried out at the LSE and as part of the Global Economic History Network. The paper
revisits and situates the historiography of Ottoman cotton textiles within current debates
concerning the emergence of a world economy through the lens of the first global
industry, cotton textiles. The period before mechanization saw the expansion of cotton
textiles as a commodity partly as a response to European demand and partly as a result
of rising world population and its demand for cheaper, more comfortable clothing. The
Ottoman Empire and the Ottoman cotton textiles industry is conceptualized as an
intermediate space, between Asia and Europe, and the paper, after mapping the
cultivation, production and marketing of cotton, focuses in its third part on the
transmission of technical knowledge. The finishing of cotton cloth for a long time was
one of the weakest points in the history of European technical knowledge (which should
be differentiated from science). The cases of knowledge transfer and its dissemination
from Asia westwards discussed in the paper force us to rethink teleological narratives of
European superiority and economic growth, as well as recognize the capabilities but
also limitations of industries such as the Ottoman one in comparison and in connection
with other cotton textile industries. The paper contributes to a global economic history
of cotton textiles and to polycentric narratives of development within the rising field of
Global History.