Janet Klein: The Margins of Empire (sku-15607238) Hardcover

Janet Klein’s hardcover book The Margins of Empire, sku-15607238, is listed under Middle Eastern History Books. It examines how the Ottoman state formed a tribal militia from Kurdish populations in its eastern regions at the turn of the twentieth century and tasked it with subduing a perceived Armenian threat.

Klein traces a contradiction in that policy: states may bring groups into their institutions while seeking to suppress them, and groups seeking autonomy may use state channels to pursue it. Armenian revolutionaries were not suppressed, while Kurdish leaders the state had sought to weaken gained power. The militia affected the region, state-society relations and Kurdish-Turkish relations.

The book also addresses state-building, local power, violence and dispossession.