Ottoman Guilds between Myth and Reality

This presentation aims to offer a critical assessment of the existing scholarship on Ottoman guilds on the one hand and share the initial findings of my ongoing research on the three major guilds (butchers, bakers and tanners) of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Istanbul on the other. This research confirms the revisionist view that Ottoman guilds adapted themselves to the changing dynamics of the global economy and continued to dominate the realm of industrial production in urban centres until the end of the Ottoman Empire.