Arguably, the comparative study of the early modern Muslim empires (Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal) began with Marshall Hodgson's Venture of Islam (1974). Hodgson wrote with a strong emphasis on high culture, as did Stephen Dale, who followed in Hodgson's footsteps with his The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals (2010). Douglas Streusand, Islamic Gunpowder Empires: Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals (2010) compared the three empires from a largely military point of view, while Ali Anooshahr, The Ghazi Sultans and the Frontiers of Islam: A Comparative Study of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods (2009) examined their foundational periods and the role of literature in the self-fashioning of rulers. Works such as these, along with the emergence of the study of global history, have supported the steady growth of university courses in the field. Faroqhi, a distinguished scholar of Ottoman socio-economic history, is concerned with bringing her distinctive insights to the process of comparison. Her time period is limited to that of the early sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries. She omits the Safavid world from the comparison on the grounds that the Ottoman and Mughal worlds are more than enough for one scholar to grasp, and regards her focus as being “the interaction between elites and societies with a strong emphasis on the latter”.

Getting to the point, only the second half of the book addresses socio-economic history. The first half deals with issues relating to the sources and the context. Thus, the first chapter addresses problems in the written sources: the particular purposes of the chroniclers; the fictitious histories that have been accepted for hundreds of years; the richness of the Ottoman archives as compared with the thinness of the Mughal, much having been dispersed in private hands; and the problems of the highly politicized nature of history in the current age, and so on. The second chapter considers imagery, in the main paintings, as sources. We are reminded of what can be learned from the great processions of Ottoman trades and guilds before the Sultan, which were recorded as book illustrations, and the incidental appearance of artisans and lesser functionaries in the court and building scenes of Mughal miniatures. Portrayals of women can be found, royal and not, but these are normally ideal representations and not “from life”. Chapter Three considers the ways in which the Ottomans and Mughals used military power to secure their rule. The Ottomans relied on both their navy and their army, while the Mughals were a totally land-based power. Gunpowder was an essential technology for both empires, and in this the Ottomans tended to be the teachers of the Mughals. The heart of the Ottoman army was their slave troops, the Janissaries, raised from the Christian peoples of the empire, while an important part of the Mughal army were the Hindu Rajputs with their notable traditions of martial valour. In spite of the presence of gunpowder, forts and fortified cities were essential to secure strategic positions. Both regimes ruled substantial non-Muslim populations; the fourth chapter considers ways in which rulers sought to legitimize their regimes, whether it was observing the “circle of justice”, putting on entertainments for the public, promoting sacred kingship, or imposing the poll tax, or not as the case may be, on non-Muslim subjects.

Rather over halfway through the book, it begins to address subjects more aligned, to my mind, with social history. Markets and small towns, ports and capital cities are considered in both empires. We learn of Izmir in Ottoman Anatolia, and Surat in Mughal Gujarat, both ports at which European trade was significant. We learn, too, of how rulers’ palaces, as great centres of consumption, stimulated trade. This said, there was much more money in circulation in Delhi and Agra than in Istanbul. Faroqhi makes it clear that individual traders are hard to track down. But she is able to tell of at least two: the remarkable Ismā‘īl Abū Taqiyya, a Syrian living in Cairo, who commanded a considerable trading network throughout the eastern Mediterranean and left over 1,000 documents in Cairo's Qadi archives; and the Jain jewel merchant, Banarasidas, who was not a particularly successful merchant, but left what may be the first autobiography, a charming work, in an Indian language. Then, Faroqhi moves on to an area of her especial expertise, the artisans, and shows how in both empires they might flock to great centres of patronage, like royal and princely palaces, but also migrate to safe havens as warfare or taxation made life difficult in their localities. A chapter on rural life reveals that the Ottomans were able to exercise tighter control than the Mughals, and for longer, on the “landlord” classes. In addition, the widespread monetization of the rural economy, a direct outcome of Mughal taxation policies, meant that peasants were more involved with the market and more exposed to the miseries following the failure of monsoon rains. Faroqhi ends by considering those she sees on the margins of society – women, servants, low-caste people, and slaves. In the case of women, she is delighted by the number of Ottoman studies that demonstrate women showing female agency, striving to control their possessions and their lives. By the same token, she is pleased by the example of the woman from Mughal Surat who had it written in her marriage contract that she had the right to take her husband's concubine away from him.

Overall, Faroqhi has created an excellent starting point for those who wish to compare aspects of the socio-economic history of the two empires. In each area covered, the secondary literature is discussed, and all is underpinned by a full bibliography. It should support many undergraduate and graduate papers in the field. However, no great overall argument emerges from the work. Instead, we are urged, rightly, to acknowledge the similarities and differences in the history of the two great empires.