"Alexis Wick’s The Red Sea provides a rare history of an Ottoman Red Sea while asking why the Ottomans did not even conceive of a Red Sea. Wick’s meditation on the meaning of the sea for historians finds its answer in a romantic, European philosophy of history in which the sea becomes anthropomorphized as a subject and a creature of intelligent design. Intriguing reading for anyone interested in the ‘new thalassology,’ or oceanic turn in history.”—Engseng Ho, author of The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean
“The Red Sea is simultaneously an important addition to the recent scholarship of thalassology and an erudite, insightful, and necessary critique of it. This book will be of interest to scholars of Ottoman history, European history, maritime history, Middle East studies, and, importantly, to historians critical of disciplinary methodologies and approaches in the field.”—Joseph A. Massad, author of Islam in Liberalism