This volume by Şevket Pamuk of Bogaziçi University, Istanbul, probably best known for his earlier work entitled The Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism, 1820–1913: Trade, Investment and Production (CUP, 1987), is a significant addition to the literature on the interface of early modern imperial and monetary systems. Dealing with the political economy of the Ottoman empire over its sprawling life-span, the book traces the evolution of the relationship between the Ottomans and money, from the time that early Ottoman coinage emerged in the 1320s from under the Byzantine shadow, to the nineteenth- century integration into the Gold Standard, and the financing of the First World War. The long span covered is divided for purposes of expositional convenience into five periods, respectively 1300–1477, 1477–1585, 1585–1690, 1690–1844, and finally 1844–1918. Interestingly, despite Pamuk's own background as a specialist of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it is the second and third periods that are most extensively treated, between chapters 4 and 9. Yet, there is enough here for those concerned with both the earlier and later periods to be satisfied that they have not been short-changed by the book's ambitious title.