Istanbul Households is a social history of marriage, the family and
population in Istanbul during the turbulent period of transition from
the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. Istanbul was the first Muslim city to
experience a systematic decline in fertility and major changes in family
life, and, as such, set the tone for many social and cultural changes in
Turkey and the Muslim world. Istanbul was the major focal point for the
forces of westernization of Turkish society, processes which not only
transformed political and economic institutions in that country, but
also had a profound and lasting impact on domestic life. This is the
first systematic historical study of the family and population in Turkey
or the Middle East, combining the methods and approaches of social
anthropology, historical demography and social history.