Mediterranean Encounters

"Focusing on travel images and cross-cultural exchange, examines interactions between the Ottoman Empire and Europeans from 1774 to 1839, highlighting mutual dependence and reciprocity"--Provided by publisher. In this volume, Elisabeth Fraser shows that artists and the works they created in the Mediterranean during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were informed by mutual dependence and reciprocity between European nations and the Ottoman Empire. Her rich exploration of this vibrant cross-cultural exchange challenges the dominant interpretation of European relations with the East during the period, revealing a shared world of fluid and long-sustained interactions. Voyagers to and from the Ottoman Empire documented their journeys in prints, paintings, and lavishly illustrated travelogues; many of these helped define Europe's self-identified role as heir to Ottoman civilizations and bolstered its presence in the Islamic Mediterranean and beyond. Fraser finds that these works illuminate not only how travelers' experiences aborad were more nuanced than the expansionist ideology with which they became associated, but also how these narratives depicted the vitality of Ot