Brian Ross wrote on Jun 30^th, 2016 at 6:00pm:


You always make me laugh, say funny things.

Ottomans were first introduced to the printing press by the Sephardic Jews in Istanbul in 1494
The printing press was used only by the non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire until the 18th century.

We are a talking about a 290 year delay since the invention of the printing press. The 290 year delay is unforgivable but that’s not the saddest part. The adoption of the printing press took another century. Şükrü Hanioğlu [1] explains that the number of books printed in the following century was miniscule.

“The late arrival of the printing house in the empire has often been cited as one of the major causes of the relative decline of Ottoman science and culture in comparison with Europe. It should be noted, however, that the major Ottoman printing houses published a combined total of only 142 books in more than a century of printing between 1727 and 1838. When taken in conjunction with the fact that only a miniscule number of copies of each book were printed, this statistic demonstrates that the introduction of the printing press did not transform Ottoman cultural life until the emergence of vibrant print media in the middle of the nineteenth century”

https://sureshemre.wordpress.com/2014/01/18/on-the-late-adoption-of-the-printing...

Lord Herbert wrote on Jun 30^th, 2016 at 6:26pm:


Perhaps he is referring to a different Erdogan.

polite_gandalf wrote on Jun 30^th, 2016 at 2:07pm:


polite_gandalf wrote on Jun 30^th, 2016 at 4:33pm:

Quantum wrote on Jun 30^th, 2016 at 4:45pm:


Believe it Quantum.

First the Armenians: At the time of the Armenian genocide, the Turkish government was controlled by a fiercely militant secularist regime that had overthrown the Islamists that had introduced a constitution, parliament and moves towards democracy. Turkey was not a democratic and equal society during Islamist rule, but it was heading in the right direction. The secularists of course undid most of the Islamist reforms.

Second - the arab revolt. What a bizarre thing to bring up, since the Arab revolt was lead by reactionaries like the Wahabis (you know those lovely people who run Saudi Arabia today) - who were mostly "revolting" against what they saw as the horror of the Ottoman's move to liberalise Islam.

Third, while Erdogan has gone a bit over the top with his rhetoric, I don't see much evidence of actual moves to suppress democracy in practice - apart from a gaoling here and there. But again, you are more than welcome to provide the evidence that proves me wrong - I wonder why you don't? In any case, one has to put this into perspective and to understand the breathtaking hypocricy of the kemalist opposition - who would move to suppress religious freedoms - as well as many other freedoms, including yes, gays and journalists - in the blink of an eye - as they did for many decades last century.

GordyL wrote on Jun 30^th, 2016 at 6:51pm:


Now that would drive ANYONE to murder and suicide 

Lisa Jones wrote on Jun 30^th, 2016 at 6:45pm:


Really?

GordyL wrote on Jun 30^th, 2016 at 6:42pm:


Missing the point, Gordy?  How unusual.  You claimed they "couldn't get their heads around the printing press", yet they were using printing presses inside the Ottoman Empire well enough IMHO.   Perhaps the Ottomans care more about their scribes than the Europeans did?   

freediver wrote on Jun 30^th, 2016 at 6:24pm:


Slow to change does not equate to an inability to change, FD.