Giancarlo Casale. The Ottoman Age of Exploration. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 304 S. $49.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-537782-8.

Reviewed by Thomas Philipp

Published on H-Soz-u-Kult (April, 2011)

The book belongs to an increasing number of cials. Among them were the Grand Viziers studies, which show us that the Muslim societies Ibrahim Pasha, Hadim Suleyman Pasha, Rustem of the Middle East, including the Ottoman, did not Pasha, the one Grand Vizier opposed to the whole fall into decay and rigor mortis with the expan‐ Indian Ocean enterprise, and Sokollu Mehmed sion of the Ottoman Empire. Giancarlo Casale’s Pasha, probably its strongest supporter. Other ac‐ choice of topic leads him into the area of Indian tors, not surprisingly, were high ofcials closely Ocean studies, which has progressed sufciently involved with governing Egypt and managing the to have laid at rest the misconception that with Hejaz and Yemen but also people best described the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean as privateers or corsairs. They all were aware of commercial trafc between that Ocean and the what advantages a strong Ottoman presence in Mediterranean came to an end. Giancarlo Casale the Indian Ocean could be and how proftable the goes a considerable step further, arguing that the spice trade was. Together they constituted what Ottoman Empire became an active player, com‐ Casale calls loosely the “Indian Ocean Lobby.” mercially and militarily, in the Indian Ocean and Casale fully demonstrates how the Ottomans that its encounter with the Portuguese marked the acquired European and Arab geographers’ and frst confrontation of competing “world ideolo‐ travelers’ knowledge, especially in cartography. gies,” considering the globe in its physical entire‐ Portuguese, Spanish and Italian publications on ty. Although religion continued to defne the rival‐ the subject became available in the Ottoman Em‐ ry, commercial interests increasingly overshad‐ pire, soon inspiring Ottomans to write their own owed any other consideration. reports about travels in the Indian Ocean and Giancarlo Casale proceeds chronologically, their encounters with newly arrived Portuguese weaving together political and intellectual history and Muslim local populations and rulers there. of the Ottoman Empire throughout the 16th centu‐ Casale analyses the motives for writing such ry. His study focuses on a number of its high of‐ reports, their impact on the public opinion of the H-Net Reviews ruling Ottoman elite and the manipulation of such litical will existed, the transport of wood did not knowledge in the internal disputes over Ottoman present a problem. policies. The encounter not only with the Por‐ I concur with Casale’s arguments about the tuguese in the Indian Ocean but especially also reasons of collapse of the Indian Ocean enter‐ with various Muslim states and Emirates forged, prise, I would, however, emphasize also the role according to Casale, a new, albeit rudimentary, of the technology of new ships. Casale uses the global awareness of the world and created, paral‐ terms of ‘galley’, ‘galleon’, galeotte’ and ‘sailing lel to the global claims of the Portuguese, an Ot‐ ship’ without troubling himself with defnitions. toman global claim that the Sultan was the They don’t even appear in the index. “Caliph of all Muslims” – especially the Muslims in While the galley, a ship moved by oarsmen, the Indian Ocean. Casale cautiously surmises that was typical for the Mediterranean, the Portuguese Muslims’ loyalty for the Ottoman Sultan was de‐ had developed the “round ships” for Ocean travel‐ liberately exaggerated by the members of the In‐ ing. These were ships driven exclusively by wind dian Ocean Lobby, who traveled in the region. and were equipped with heavy artillery, which Nevertheless, the author seems to take at face val‐ otherwise hardly could be moved. “Exchanging ue such as the Sultan of Aceh’s letter begging the oarsmen for sails and warriors for guns meant es‐ Ottoman Sultan not to consider him as an inde‐ sentially the exchange of human power for inani‐ pendent ruler “… [b]ut instead to accept me … in mate power.” Carlo L. Cipolla, Guns and Sails in no way diferent from the governors of Egypt and the Early Phase of European Expansion, 1400– Yemen or the Begs of Jiddah and Aden…” (p. 128). 1700, London 1965, p. 80. This meant that far The changing fortunes of the Indian Ocean more energy was available to the round sailing Lobby during the 16th century make for a fasci‐ ships than to the galleys. They were truly swim‐ nating story. Casale follows the successes (huge ming fortresses, with an awesome fre power. profts from the spice trade) and defeats (losing Their tactic was ‘Bomb and Sink’ rather than the whole navies) and makes a convincing case for galleys’ ‘Ram and Enter.’ It also meant that they the reasons why, in the end, the Indian Ocean en‐ needed much fewer people on board than the gal‐ terprise collapsed. Shifting priorities and bitter ley. Many oarsmen and soldiers were replaced by personal rivalries at the Ottoman court hampered a few sailors and cannoneers. They needed much the development of a long-term policy. Slowly the fewer supplies, therefore could traverse longer conviction grew that tax income from land was distances and, in addition, had space enough for preferable to the profts made from the spice merchandize. The galley was traditionally the pre‐ trade which at times the government controlled. ferred ship in the Mediterranean Sea, but once on The wars with Iran and the battle of Lepanto the ocean they had no chance. Ibid., p. 103: “But (1571), in which the Ottomans lost the entire on the ocean galleys had no chances whatsoever. Mediterranean feet, increased the loss of interest When they were not sunk by the guns of the great in the Indian Ocean. Casale also points out that sailing ships they were easy prey to the fury of the the shortage of wood never constituted an obsta‐ elements.” cle for the Indian Ocean Lobby. Repeatedly the Ot‐ The galleon was a further development of the tomans had whole feets built in Suez, even Portuguese sailing ships, probably developed by though every piece of wood would have to be the Spanish but most enthusiastically adopted by logged through the desert, from the Mediter‐ the Dutch. Ibid., p. 83. By the middle of the 16th ranean, to the arsenals of Suez. Whenever the po‐ century they were much larger and faster than the early sailing ships of the Portuguese and had a

2 H-Net Reviews much larger hull for storage of goods. The Por‐ tuguese had never had the capacity to “block the trade through the Middle East” but the Dutch, and later the English, could beat the cost of transport through the Mediterranean. The spice trade of Venice and the Ottoman Empire dried up then. John Francis Guilmartin, Gunpowder and Galleys. Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare At Sea in the Sixteenth Century, Cambridge 1974, pp. 258-59. In all fairness it should be pointed out that Casale’s frst aim is to show the achievements of the “Ottoman Age of Exploration,” not only the military and commercial but also the intellectual and political ones. He does so in a convincing and well written manner, making both sides, the Ot‐ tomans and the Portuguese, come alive in their negotiations, their self-views and perception of the opponent. Casale is in the enviable position of not only knowing Ottoman and modern Turkish but also Italian and Portuguese, enabling him to consult all the relevant archives and secondary literature. The book is highly readable, well illustrated and to be recommended to all interested in Ot‐ toman and Indian Ocean history and the history of the Age of Exploration.

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Citation: Thomas Philipp. Review of Casale, Giancarlo. The Ottoman Age of Exploration. H-Soz-u-Kult, H- Net Reviews. April, 2011.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=33047

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