BOOK: Will SMILEY, From Slaves to Prisoners of War - The Ottoman Empire, Russia, and International Law [The History and Theory of International Law] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). ISBN 9780198785415, £65.00

(Source: OUP)

Oxford University Press has published a book on the concept of prisoners of war in the context of the 18^th century Ottoman-Russian wars.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Ottoman-Russian wars of the eighteenth century reshaped the map of Eurasia and the Middle East, but they also birthed a novel concept - the prisoner of war. For centuries, hundreds of thousands of captives, civilians and soldiers alike, crossed the legal and social boundaries of these empires, destined for either ransom or enslavement. But in the eighteenth century, the Ottoman state and its Russian rival, through conflict and diplomacy, worked out a new system of regional international law. Ransom was abolished; soldiers became prisoners of war; and some slaves gained new paths to release, while others were left entirely unprotected. These rules delineated sovereignty, redefined individuals' relationships to states, and prioritized political identity over economic value. In the process, the Ottomans marked out a parallel, non-Western path toward elements of modern international law. Yet this was not a story of European imposition or imitation-the Ottomans acted for their own reasons, maintaining their commitment to Islamic law. For a time even European empires played by these rules, until they were subsumed into the codified global law of war in the late nineteenth century. This story offers new perspectives on the histories of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, of slavery, and of international law.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Will Smiley, Assistant Professor of History & Humanities, Reed College

Will Smiley is a historian of the Middle East and of international and Islamic law, with a particular interest in the Ottoman Empire. He is Assistant Professor of History and Humanities at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge and his JD from Yale Law School, and previously held fellowships in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, and in Legal History at New York University.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

1: Into Captivity

2: Slavery and Ransom

3: From the Law of Ransom to the Law of Release

4: Defining the Law of Release

5: Prisoners of War

6: Negotiating the Prisoner-of-War System

7: The Rules Expand

8: Those Left Out

9: Reform and Reciprocity

10: Humanitarianism and Legal Codification

Conclusion

More information with the publisher