Marked Istanbul

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

The Tanzimat: remaking the Ottoman empire

From 1839 Ottoman reformers tried to strengthen the empire with new laws making all subjects equal, new schools, a census and a modern army, ending with the first Ottoman constitution in 1876.

Place
Istanbul · Gülhane park · BeirutThe Middle East, Europe
Laid out as
A revolutionHow things were before, the moment it turned, and how things were after.
Lessons
5 planned, none written yet

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

BeforeAn empire of separate religious communities under the sultan.

  1. IThe Gülhane edict
  2. IIEqual before the law?
  3. IIINew schools and newspapers
  4. IVRailways and telegraphs
  5. VThe constitution of 1876

AfterCitizens equal before the law, and a constitution.

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Mustafa Reşid Pasha
  • Abdülmecid I
  • Midhat Pasha
  • Namık Kemal

Objects

  • The Gülhane edict
  • The 1876 constitution

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

1839 to 1876. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?