LAUSR

As someone who has looked at similar local judicial records for other Ottoman-Syrian towns, I am impressed with Doumani’s industry and thoroughness. This book was a long time in the making, and no wonder given the masses of material that it marshals. Doumani knows the records of Tripoli and Nablus inside out, and he is a reliable guide to unlocking their meaning for his thesis. The specialist audience to whom this book is addressed will find much to ponder, not least the degree to which popular generalizations about social life in the past have little evidentiary grounding. Nonspecialists may find the book dense or recondite. However, I hope that Doumani’s arguments will find their way into new editions of widely read and widely taught textbooks. His interventions will encourage fresh thinking about patriarchy, family structures, and shari a in precolonial times. Words such as “Islam(ic),” “Arab,” and “Syria” are excluded from the book’s title, perhaps in an effort to sidestep the baggage or assumptions often associated with them. Family Life in the Ottoman Mediterranean should be read by all who work in and teach social history of the Ottoman lands.