Please join the Mellon Research Initiative in Early Modern Studies, the Department of Middle East/South Asia Studies and the Center for Science and Innovation Studies for this talk by Dr. Giancarlo Casale (Department of History, University of Minnesota).

Abstract: When Ottoman sailors of the sixteenth century first left the Mediterranean and ventured into the unfamiliar waters of the Indian Ocean, what kinds of ships did they use? Who built them? How did they compare to the vessels of their European rivals? And how did they change over time?

This lecture begins by trying to address these basic but still unanswered questions through a combination of visual, narrative, and statistical evidence from the sixteenth century. Then, from this starting point, it will broach larger questions about the mechanisms of innovation and the transfer of technology over long distances and across civilizational boundaries, as well as the problem of how to give a "human face" to the history of early modern technology.