Description: In Ottoman Passports, Ilkay Yilmaz reconsiders the history of two political issues, the Armenian and Macedonian questions, approaching both through the lens of mobility restrictions during the late Ottoman Empire from 1876 to 1908. Yilmaz investigates how Ottoman security perceptions and travel regulations were directly linked to transnational security regimes battling against anarchism. The Hamidian government targeted "internal threats" to the regime with security policies that created new categories of suspects benefiting from the concepts of vagrant, conspirator, and anarchist. Yilmaz explores how mobility restrictions and the use of passports became critical to targeting groups including Armenians, Bulgarians, seasonal and foreign workers, and revolutionaries. Taking up these new policies on surveillance, mobility, and control, Ottoman Passports offers a timely look at the origins of contemporary immigration debates and the historical development of discrimination, terrorism, and counterterrorism.
Review Quotes: Ottoman Passports is not just an impressive contribution to the growing body of scholarship on mobility studies. The book also stands as a landmark achievement in the studies of Ottoman security policies during the Hamidian Era by placing passports at the center of her scrutiny to contribute to our understanding of what kind of modernization enterprise the Ottoman statesmen desired to establish.-- "Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity"