ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the impact of Tanzimat in the provinces by correlating patterns of appointment and litigation to the promulgation and enactment of reforms at the local level. It presents that the Tanzimat reforms succeeded in Tokat, and other Anatolian towns of similar size, when and where locals acted as primary agents of change. It further examines the paradox of how the new laws -purportedly designed to broaden prosperity redounded overwhelmingly to the benefit of a few notable families in the provinces. The book argues that the final installments of the Tanzimat reforms represented zones of compromise among the state, provincial notables, and other commercial elites in Ottoman society. It investigates what effects the Tanzimat reforms had in rearranging the social and political order of a town that remained largely outside the global economy.
