Reşat Kasaba

A brief history of modern Istanbul

Nationalising the imperial capital The history of modern Istanbul, like the history of modern Turkey, begins with the end of the First World War and the demise of the Ottoman Empire. The city that became Istanbul was, famously, established as an imperial capital – the new Rome that would take over the functions of the seat of empire from the decrepit old Rome. The geography of the seas and continents surrounding the city made it a natural focus, which in the longue duree would assert itself as the centre of networks whose nature and relative weight changed in time, but whose topographies exhibited continuity. Over the thousand years of its Byzantine incarnation the city’s fortunes waxed and waned, until it was reduced to a dependency of Genoa after the ravages imposed by the Latins during the Fourth Crusade (1204–61). The Ottoman dynasty revived Istanbul’s centrality to the larger Eurasian region and helped resuscitate its economy, not only as a trading post, but also as a centre of what we would today call cultural industries – education, books, the higher arts and exclusive items of consumption for the wealthy. The city’s size soon came to dwarf any competitor in the entire Middle East and the Balkans; its imperial riches and the consumption capacity of its inhabitants made it into the largest marketplace in that region.

Open-Door Treaties: China and the Ottoman Empire Compared

The Balta Limam Treaty of 1838, the Nanjing Treaty of 1842, and the events that led to them have epochal significance in the history of Britains involvement in the Ottoman Empire and China. In addition to stipulating the principles according to which commercial relations were to take place between England and the Ottoman Empire and China, these treaties became the first in a series of international and domestic measures that marked a turn toward free trade and informal empire as distinct from the widespread use of formal methods of control that had characterized British policies in previous periods. As such, the treaties are also regarded as having a global significance. Furthermore, unlike previous unilateral grants by the Ottoman and Chinese governments that restricted the commerce and the residence of foreigners, the Balta Limam and Nanjing documents were drawn up as bilateral agreements that greatly expanded the foreigners’ ability to trade and reside in the Ottoman Empire and China.