Suraiya Faroqhi. Women in the Ottoman Empire. A Social and Political History. I.B. Tauris, London [etc.] 2023. xxiv, 304 pp. Ill. £65.00. (Paper: £21.99; E-book: £19.79.)

In April 2020, I received a friendly and sincere email from Suraiya Faroqhi asking for advice on literature about World War I from a female perspective for an online graduate course she was teaching during the pandemic.She wrote: "Locked up in a small apartment for over four weeks now, I have started to work on a fairly elaborate set of class notes on Ottoman women's history".In the months that followed, we continued to correspond on similar topics, including the fate of Armenian women during the genocide, the philanthropic activities of Ottoman women in the nineteenth century, the life and works of Zabel Essayan, and so on.As Faroqhi notes in her preface, the origin of Women in the Ottoman Empire: A Social and Political History was the detailed lecture notes she prepared during lockdown.Despite being disconnected from archives and libraries, she engaged in a lively dialogue with many colleagues who shared their suggestions and publications.Faroqhi's impressive and enviable diligence and enthusiasm, even under difficult circumstances, have enabled her to produce a broad panorama of women's lives in the Ottoman Empire from the 1500s to the early 1900s, touching on a wide range of issues including, but not limited to, marriage, divorce, and inheritance; moneylending, women's labour and slavery; patronage, artists, and educators; abortion, midwifery, and (royal) motherhood.The book effectively acquaints "the reader with the state of the art, sketching an overall view of the current historiography" (p.9).However, as Faroqhi herself explicitly asserts, the book is "about women rather than about gender" (p.4).The most recent critical feminist historiography and theoretical discussions, particularly on sexuality, performativity, embodiment, and subjectivity, are not addressed in this overview.The book begins with three introductory sections: Introduction, Prologue, and Chapter One.The Introduction sets the main axes of the book and defines the nature of this broad overview of Ottoman women's history.It covers the main arguments and theoretical underpinnings (agency, resilience strategies, giving voice), sources and methods, and chronological and spatial focus.The Prologue, on the other hand, provides a gender-inclusive political history of the period under consideration, touching on separate issues such as the Ottoman-Safavis conflict, the palace and the harem, the Tanzimat reforms, and the disintegration of the empire.Chapter One, "How women fitted into Ottoman history", discusses the periodization used and the resulting changes in women's lives in each period.The body of this book is divided according to this periodization: Part One covers the 200 years between 1500 and 1700; Part Two covers a somewhat shorter period between 1700 and 1870; and Part Three extends from