The Ottoman Empire In The Great Depression Analysis

Sevet Pamuk proved his passion for digging deeper into history through the use of writing the article “The Ottoman Empire in the ‘Great Depression’ of 1873-1896,” published in the Journal of Economic History, in March of 1984. Pamuk points out that the view of the economy and changes in domestic production levels of the Ottoman Empire during the years 1873-1896 are misrepresented due to the lack of consideration of sufficient evidence of the impact that trade, external forces and the internal forces had on it. Pamuk hones in on three main areas of interest to prove his point; those being “the establishment of the Ottoman Public Debit Administration, large net payments on the external debt,” and “long-term trends in Ottoman foreign trade.”
He brings out that we cannot base our viewpoint solely on “monetary phenomena.” Nevertheless, he runs into a problem here. There are no direct statistics that allow someone to assess the change in aggregate production levels during this time period. However, Pamuk determines based on agricultural revenues and revenues of the Treasury, that evidence points to a stagnation and probable declined in “production by urban artists.” He also comes to the conclusion that he can make the assumption of aggregate production levels based on: “the underlying rates of change in production
This presents a possible bias. Another weakness is that there isn't sufficient evidence or data to consider other aspects of the empire’s economy other than monetary means; so it leaves it up to educated guesses rather than tangible proof. He also sheds light on conflicting viewpoints that seem to contradict his own in the conclusion. Although it is a strength to consider all aspects of the argument, it made his viewpoint a little blurry. There are other strengths that are profound. Pamuk used a strong amount of sources. He analyzed actual tangible data to form his opinion. He also didn’t settle for the inclusive view of the Ottoman Empire comparative to the rest of the world and how it was impacted by the “big boom.” I would recommend this article to anyone who wanted to see an explanation of monetary data from the Ottoman Empire. However, I would recommend that it be in combination with other viewpoints of it as well, since there are still some mysteries to be solved. The article is a little dated. Documents about history constantly evolve and change based on new information or new perspectives; I think Sevket Pamuk presented an important enough issue to consider incorporating into future documentation about the economy of the Ottoman Empire during 1873 through