Review: Faisal H. Husain, Rivers of the Sultan: The Tigris and Euphrates in the Ottoman Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021.

Abstract

In Rivers of the Sultan: The Tigris and Euphrates in the Ottoman Empire, Faisal H. Husain examines the early modern Ottoman state’s management of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Building on the foundational works of Alan Mikhail and Sam White, Rivers of the Sultan is the latest book to enhance our understanding of the environmental history of the Ottoman Empire during the early modern period. Divided into three parts (‘The Amphibious State,’ ‘The Water Wide Web,’ and ‘The Rumblings of Nature’), the book guides readers through the political developments and environmental factors that shaped Ottoman rule in the Tigris-Euphrates basin between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The final product is an empirically rich and methodologically sophisticated study that makes high-stakes contributions to various historiographies.