Nomads, Migrants and Cotton in the Eastern Mediterranean

Book excerpt: This book discusses the transformation of southeast Anatolia during the 19th century. The analysis, which revolves around cotton production in the Adana Plain, enriches our knowledge of how people from different backgrounds came together to build a new social milieu in the late Ottoman period. Through the analysis of the dynamics between the multi-layered processes of sedentarization, Egypt’s experience with cotton cultivation, the extension of the cultivated area via large scale landholding patterns, and the establishment of the brand new port-city of Mersin, this book shows how former nomads and settlers, many of whom had arrived there only recently, created a commercially viable region almost from scratch in an age of changing state-society relations.