Learning to Read in the Late Ottoman Empire and the Early Turkish Republic

by Fortna, Benjamin C.

• ISBN13: 9780230232969
• ISBN10: 0230232965
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-01-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This book provides an exploration of the ways in which children learned and were taught to read, against the background of the transition from Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic. This study gives us a fresh perspective on the transition from empire to republic by showing us the ways that reading was central to the construction of modernity.

Author Biography

Benjamin C. Fortna teaches Middle Eastern History at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK. He received degrees from Yale, Columbia and the University of Chicago. His publications include Imperial Classroom: Islam, Education and the State in the Late Ottoman Empire and the co-edited The Modern Middle East: A Sourcebook for History.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Note on Transliteration, Dates and Surnames
Introduction: Reading Empire, Reading Republic
Reading Represented
Context and Content
Mechanics: Text and Image
Commodification and the Market
Lives of Reading and Writing
Conclusion: Reading and Modernity
Notes
Bibliography
Index