The Sultan's Organ, by John Mole

John Mole noticed my personal and professional interest in Islamic history and sent me a most interesting book, The Sultan's Organ, a book that is not salacious in the least, concerns an Englishman, Thomas Dallam, who around 1600 transported a gift from Queen Elizabeth and a  number of her merchants trading with Turkey to the Ottoman Sultan: a massive organ that not only played music but was festooned with  mechanical figures.

It's a good read.

I've often thought from other reading that through most of history has been little difference between a sailor and a pirate. This account clearly confirms that impression with regard  to the Elizabethan era.

There is also some really down to earth description of the daily life of a traveler: the search for provisions on an infertile Mediterranean island that results in the searchers finding only some garlic for sale – garlic that their fellow travelers are very interested in acquiring once they hear of  it;. or the amazing story of how these English travelers, spending the night in an abandoned house, almost scare themselves to death because they mistake a loose garter for an attacking snake.

John Mole has written a number of other books, which can be acquired on his website here. One that appeals to me is his story of being "a potato oligarch in the new Russia." You can read the first page here and see why I am considering following up.

Everybody has their favourite pirates: Giancarlo Casale’s The Ottoman Age of Exploration

Near the beginning of Giancarlo Casale's  book, he remarks that the famous explorer-hero Prince Henry the Navigator was basically a pirate.  What follows is an entire book about Ottoman pirates of the 16^th century, whose role in expanding the trade in the Indian Ocean basin Casale obviously admires.  He knows they are pirates, or the next best thing, but then everybody has their favourite pirates.Casale has done his subjects proud.  His Ottoman admirals/merchants/corsairs are now part of the English language scholarly narrative of the age  of exploration, in a form that is accessible to any one who is really interested.

Casale argues that just as the Portugal and Spain created entirely new empires based on trading opportunities in seas unfamiliar to them, so did the Ottoman Empire, which before the 16^th century had been entirely oriented to the Mediterranean.  The story of 16^th century exploration in the eastern hemisphere should not be seen as merely  one of Christian Europe expanding into Muslim seas.  Although the Ottomans were Muslims, they had to work just as hard to find and exploit the new opportunities of the time.  Casale argues convincingly that the Ottomans were just as crucial as the Portuguese in creating a new global field of geopolitical competition.  And maybe they did better.

Here is where a certain amount of sentimentality comes in.  The book is a tribute to Ottomans whose role in politics, trade, exploration and cartography has long been underappreciated, in good part because theso few people have the necessary languages.  But at the end of the book of we are in a position to see that even if the trade in that region had increased dramatically, the Ottomans working to monopolize it, like their Portuguese counterparts, failed to create a viable Indian Ocean empire.  Nevertheless, Casale succeeds: he brings to life an interesting part of world history and made me care about it.