A history of the postal system that once connected the Ottoman Empire Before the advent of steamships or the telegraph, the premier technology for long-distance communication was the horse-run relay system. Every empire had one--including the Ottoman Empire. Examining how the Ottoman postal system worked across three centuries, Choon Hwee Koh tells the history of this vast empire and its changing social order and tracks the roles of eight small-scale actors--the Courier, the Tatar, Imperial Decrees, the Bookkeeper, the Postmaster, the Villager, Money, and the Horse. There are stories of price-gouging postmasters; of murdered couriers and their bereaved widows; of moonlighting officials transporting merchandise; of neighboring villages engaged in long-running feuds; of bookkeepers calculating the annual costs of horseshoes, halters, and hay; of Tatar couriers and British travelers sharing drunken nights at post stations; of swimming with horses across rivers; and of hiding from marauding bandits in the desert.
By weaving together chronicles, sharia court records, fiscal registers, collective petitions, appointment contracts, and imperial decrees from the Ottoman archive, this history of a large-scale communications infrastructure reveals the interdependence of an empire and its diverse imperial subjects.
