Cornell Fleischer as a Political Historian of the Classical Era and Historian Mustafa Ali
Cornell Fleischer is one of the most distinguished scholars of Classical Ottoman History, focusing mainly to the Age of Suleyman. This article, after giving brief information about Fleischer's importance in the Classical Ottoman History stu- dies, will review his excellent book “Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire, the Historian Mustafa Âlî”. In that book Fleischer concentrates on the well known writings of Mustafa Âlî to compose an intellectual and personal biography of the author. The greatest achievement of the book is that Fleischer successfully balances the biography with the important developments of the time under consideration. This book contributes to the Classical Ottoman political history at least in two ways. First; thanks to the methodology which can be formulated in Fleisher's word as “covering skeleton with flesh” or reaching information about institutions by focusing on biographies, the book reveals many important historical facts which otherwise would remain obscured. The second contribution of the book is to enrich the contents of the Ottoman political history by enlarging the scope and adding many new questions and themes.
FATMA SEL TURHAN
