The title of Şevket Pamuk's book is misleading. Far from restricting himself tomonetary phenomena—interest rates, coinage, inflation, and availability ofspecie—the author has chosen to cast his study of money during the Ottoman period(1300–1918) in the widest possible terms. Viewing some of the crucial issues of Ottomaneconomic and political history through a monetary lens has produced new and interestinginsights—in some cases, the result is a revision of old arguments—but on othermatters, Pamuk has produced provocative new hypotheses. Furthermore, the book offers a timelyaddition to the rapidly developing field of global history. Although most of Pamuk'scomparative remarks relate to early modern Europe, his study establishes a benchmark againstwhich the analyses of monetary and economic phenomena in the other two early modern MiddleEastern states—the Mughal and the Safavid—can be measured.