What About the Middle East? From Ottoman Might to Western Interventions ~ Şevket Pamuk

The very term “Middle East” evokes ideas of contested borders and chronic conflicts. How did this come to be?

The modern Middle East was born in the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, with British and French interventions as its handmaidens. This process was famously explored by David Fromkin in a now-classic book, The Peace to End All Peace, but the explanation leaves the deeper question unaddressed:

When, and why, did Western states become more powerful than the once mighty Ottoman Empire? Was this a product of the Industrial Revolution, American colonies, or something else entirely?

Şevket Pamuk is the leading economic historian of the Ottoman Empire.

A professor at Boğaziçi University, Pamuk has spent several decades measuring various economic indicators from the Ottoman regions, comparing them to developments in Britain, France, and beyond. From wage slips to military logistics, his research offers many exciting clues on “great divergence” between the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe.

In this episode, we discuss the lessons that Pamuk’s research has given him, and how all of this helps us understand the Middle East today. What ensues is a sweeping conversation that ranges from the impacts of colonialism to the origins of capitalism and from the rise of modern taxation to the political effects of running an oil economy.

Enjoy!

You can access a transcript of this conversation at OnHumans.Substack.com.

Subscribe to On Humans to stay tuned for a more Iran-focused episode on the Middle East, to be released in late 2026.

If you enjoy this, you may also want to check out the show’s existing coverage on the economic origins of the modern world: 

• What About China? with Yasheng Huang

• What About India? with Bishnupriya Gupta

• The Birth of Modern Prosperity, with Oded Galor, Brad DeLong, Daron Acemoglu, and Branko Milanovic

• The Great Divergence, with Kenneth Pomeranz, Joel Mokyr, Robert Allen, Debin Ma, Bishnupriya Gupta, and Stephen Broadberry.

FACT-CHECKING

This episode has been fact-checked, and no errors have been found. If you find one, please get in touch by commenting on the episode page at OnHumans.Substack.com.

LINKS

Full show notes with a transcript at⁠ OnHumans.Substack.com.⁠

Support at ⁠Patreon.com/OnHumans⁠⁠

Music credit: Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay.

Get in touch: [email protected]

KEYWORDS

Names: Debin Ma | Patrick O’Brien | Joel Mokyr | Robert C. Allen | Kenneth Pomeranz | Brad DeLong | Peter the Great | Gutenberg

Technical terms: Great Divergence | GDP per capita | Urban wages | Fiscal centralisation | State capacity | Agrarian empires | Maritime empires | Mercantilism | Political economy | Commercialisation | Bourgeoisie | Institutional change | Atlantic slave trade | Capital-intensive production | Oil curse | | Hegemonic powers

Themes: Ottoman Empire | Ottoman Empire economic history | Ottoman decline | Economic history of the Middle East | Great Divergence | Ottoman Empire vs Western Europe | Origins of the Industrial Revolution | Rise of capitalism | European colonialism | history of taxation and military power | State capacity & economic development | Coal and the Industrial Revolution | Oil curse in the Middle East | Economic causes of European dominance | Arab nationalism