Inaugural volume in the new series Transregional Middle Easts
As Istanbul faces mounting ecological pressures—from the recently proclaimed “death” of the Marmara Sea to deforestation driven by mega-infrastructure, rising sea levels, and the threat of a major earthquake—this volume argues that environmental history is essential to understanding the city’s predicaments. Coedited by K. Mehmet Kentel and Onur İnal, it bridges urban and environmental history, foregrounding nonhuman actors, ecological processes, and material landscapes, while challenging how the concept of “the City” has been defined and contested. Appropriately the first volume in the series Transregional Middle Easts, Istanbul Unbound integrates environmental dynamics, recognizes fluid boundaries, and centers nonhuman agents in urban transformation, revealing the inseparable entanglement of urban life and regional environmental change in one of the world’s most dynamic metropolises.
Istanbul’s soaring domes and minarets fill visitors with awe, but beneath that majestic skyline lies a stranger, more vivacious city. Istanbul Unbound cuts through the stone monuments to reveal an organic metropolis, sustained by a shifting, multispecies network of deep aquifers, broken drains, and untamed flora. Chapter upon chapter, Istanbul emerges as a stratified, metabolic wonder.
Faisal H. Husain, Penn State University
A timely and important volume which seeks to ‘unbind’ Istanbul from familiar boundaries. Undoubtedly a significant contribution to the fields of urban history, environmental history, and Ottoman/Turkish studies.
Sean Lawrence, West Virginia University
About the Author
K. Mehmet Kentel is an assistant professor at the Leiden University Institute for History. He is the editor of YILLIK: Annual of Istanbul Studies, and has co-edited On the Spot: Panoramic Gaze on Istanbul, a History.
Onur İnal is a senior postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vienna, Department of Near Eastern Studies. He is the author of Gateway to the Mediterranean: An Environmental History of Late Ottoman Izmir.
