3/4/2010

The Janissary Tree was not one of my favorite books although I can see how the story relates to what we have been discussing in class. The whole idea of reform is what the theme of the book is, and the theme of the class thus far. Reform came in the form of the Turkish Ottoman government imposing with force, modernity on its people. I don't view that as a bad thing actually. The Ottoman empire was notoriously known for not wanting to look towards the west for help, or to see what they needed to improve in their own society, instead they chose to live in relative seclusion. It is quite strange how the Ottoman Empire was at one point at its heyday, with the west looking up to it for advice, and modern advances yet in the 17, and 18oo's, Europe emerges centre stage and looks upon the East as inferior to it. That leads me to question whether or not Europe was indeed correct? I do not think they were because had they deeply studied what happened during the Ottoman period of reform, they would realise that it was both decline, and transformation. Unfortunately on their part, transformation came with modernization, and modernization came with decline. I don't see modernization as a bad thing although the Ottoman Empire lost its place on centre stage, along with other Islamic countries in the East.