Property, Geopolitics, and Eurocentrism: The “Great Divergence” and the Ottoman Empire

Abstract

The Ottoman Empire has thus far remained at the margin of the “Great Divergence” debate. Relatedly, no systematic attempt has been made to overcome Eurocentric views about the early modern Ottoman Empire. This paper seeks to fill this gap by problematizing and re-historicizing arguably the core concept of the Great Divergence debate, that is, capitalism. Drawing from the theory of social-property relations, the paper reconsiders the question of the origin of capitalism, and by doing so, provides not only new comparative insights on the early modern Ottoman Empire, but also the preliminary outlines of an alternative non-Eurocentric reading of world historical development.