New Books in Early Modern History

What does a 16th century ruler reveal about the nature of power, past and present?

Istanbul, 1538. The greatest of the Ottoman Sultans is at the pinnacle of world power, while his family and future are at the mercy of their own dynastic law: whichever of his five sons succeeds him must eventually kill all the others. So why not get a head start?For the next fifteen years, as Suleyman the Magnificent and his terrifying pirate captain Barbarossa face down imperial enemies across two hemispheres, the self-fulfilling curse of the Ottomans gathers its own unstoppable momentum.From the burning pyres of Paris to the rain-lashed mountains of Transylvania, from Buda to Basra, from Crimea to the coast of India, Christopher de Bellaigue's The Golden Throne is an intensely gripping yet entirely historical reconstruction of the life and world of the most feared and powerful man of the sixteenth century, revealing the price of succession and the terrible cost of success.

Christopher de Bellaigue is an author, journalist and founder of The Lake District Book Festival. The Golden Throne is the second book in a trilogy.

Lucas Tse is Examination Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.
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Between
the fifteenth and early seventeenth centuries, European painting
underwent a profound transformation as artists increasingly painted on
canvas instead of wood or walls. Nowhere was more important to this
shift than Venice, where painters experimented with canvas with
remarkable creativity and innovation. In Venetian Canvas and the Transformation of Painting (Princeton
University Press, 2026), Dr. Cleo Nisse investigates why Venetian
artists adopted canvas and how it revolutionized their art between 1400
and 1600. Intertwining approaches from art history and art
conservation, and
featuring stunning new photographs that show details as never before,
the book presents groundbreaking research based on close study of
Venetian artworks, archival sources, art-making treatises, and early
modern art criticism. It sheds new light on the materiality of early
modern canvas, its production and supply, and the influence of climate
on its use. The book offers fresh interpretations of iconic works and
important concepts such as pittura di macchia and non finito, and
demonstrates how canvas contributed to the radical new style of painters
such as Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese. But above all else, it shows
how canvas changed the making and meaning of paintings. 

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. 
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The Power of Publishing in Early Modern Tibetan Buddhism (Lexington Books, 2025) is a rich exploration of the history of Tibetan books during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Looking at this ‘golden age’ of book production, Benjamin Nourse focuses on two core topics: What was driving Tibetan publishing in the eighteenth century, and what happened as a result of that growth? How should we understand Tibetan Buddhist ideas and practices related to religious books?

Through individual chapters on publishing in Lhasa, Qing Beijing, Derge, Chone, and Labrang, Nourse shows how Tibetan books operated simultaneously as religious objects, political tools, and markers of cultural authority. Across each, we see books being used in different ways: as a way of cementing the authority of the Fifth Dalai Lama, as part of Beijing’s emergence as a major center for Tibetan Buddhist publishing, and as objects that people engaged with through reading, chanting, translation, and ritual practice.

This book should naturally appeal to those interested in Tibetan Buddhism, religion, and early modern Asia — but it is also a valuable contribution to book history, print culture, and the study of how the production of books can shape political authority and religious practice.
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Examining sectarian divergence in the early modern Middle East, Ayşe
Baltacıoğlu-Brammer's study provides a fresh perspective on the
Sunni–Shi'i division. Drawing on Ottoman Turkish, Persian, and European
sources, Boundaries of Belonging: Sectarianism and Statecraft in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire
(Cambridge University Press, 2026) explores the paradox of an Ottoman
state that combined rigid ideological discourses with pragmatic
governance. Through an analysis of key figures, events, periods, and
policies, Boundaries of Belonging reveals how political, economic, and
religious forces intersected, challenging simplistic sectarian binaries.
Baltacıoğlu-Brammer provides a comprehensive historical account of
Ottoman governance during the long sixteenth century, focusing on its
relationship with non-Sunni Muslim subjects, particularly the Qizilbash.
As both the founders of the Safavid Empire and the largest
Shiʿi-affiliated group within the Ottoman realm, the Qizilbash occupied a
crucial yet often misunderstood position. Boundaries of Belonging
examines their role within the empire, challenging the notion that they
were merely persecuted outsiders by highlighting their agency in shaping
imperial policies, negotiating their status, and influencing the
Ottoman–Safavid rivalry in Anatolia, Kurdistan, and Iraq, and western
Iran.
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Commercial seafaring, both dangerous and with large amounts of capital at stake, was the source of the risk-management institutions that still undergird the global economy today. A key institution of early modern risk management was General Average, a procedure used to redistribute extraordinary costs arising from a maritime venture between all financially interested parties. For example, should one merchant’s cargo be jettisoned to lighten a ship in a storm, the loss would be shared pro rata by the shipper and all the cargo-owners. A risk-sharing practice, different from the risk-shifting of marine insurance which became established relatively late, General Average is still in widespread use.

In Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany (Boydell Press, 2025), Jake Dyble explores how General Average worked. It reveals the gap between General Average in law and how it worked on the ground. It shows how General Average partitioned a wide array of business costs, thereby performing a significant role in structuring maritime commerce, managing risk and promoting shipping and trade. In addition, the book discusses how far General Average was a feature of a supposedly ancient, universal, customary maritime law, and contributes to debates about the evolution of institutions in economic development.

Dr Jake Dyble is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padova, Italy.

This interview is conducted by Dr Lewis Wade, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bamberg. He is the author of the prize-winning Privilege, Economy and State in Old Regime France and can be found on Bluesky @wadehistory.bsky.social.
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