Molly Greene

Title
Professor of History and Hellenic Studies
Office Phone
Office
231 Dickinson Hall
Office Hours
Thursday: 9:00 am-11:00 am
Bio/Description

Molly Greene studies the history of the Mediterranean Basin, the Ottoman Empire, and the Greek world. Her interests include the social and economic history of the Ottoman Empire, the experience of Greeks under Ottoman rule and the early modern Mediterranean. After earning a B.A. in political science at Tufts University (1981), Professor Greene spent several years living in Greece and then completed a Ph.D. in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton (1993), where she studied Ottoman history. Upon graduating she joined the Princeton faculty with a joint appointment in the History Department and the Program in Hellenic Studies. Her first book, A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean (2000), examines the transition from Venetian to Ottoman rule on the island of Crete, which the Ottomans conquered in 1669. Challenging the assumption of a radical rupture with the arrival of the Ottomans, Greene shows that the population of Crete had been drawn into the Ottoman world long before the conquest and that important continuities linked the Venetian and the Ottoman periods. Her second book, Catholic Pirates and Greek Merchants: A Maritime History of Mediterranean 1450-1700, was published in 2010 and was a co-winner of the Runciman Award for that year, given for the best book in English on any aspect of Hellenism. At the center of the book is the relationship between Catholic piracy and Greek commerce in the early modern Mediterranean. In 2015 she published The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, 1453-1768: The Ottoman Empire, part of a multi-volume series on the history of the Greek people from antiquity until the present day. That book was shortlisted for the Runciman Award.

News

In the first episode for BASEES Podcast, "Greeks and Muslims in the Classical Ottoman Empire," Molly Greene discusses the civil and cultural relations during the Ottoman Empire's 'Classical Age' from 1300-1800. Transcript of BASEES Podcast

Audio file

 

 

 

 

 

Molly Greene discusses five books that inspired her study of pirates and their victims in the Mediterranean in an interview with FiveBooks, available online as of Friday, October 13, 2010.

Current Project

Molly Greene is currently working on a history of the Pindus mountains under the Ottomans. The Pindus are the mountain chain that runs down the western side of Greece, from the Albanian border to the Gulf of Corinth.

"History in High Places: Tatarna Monastery and the Pindus Mountains," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 64 (2021) 1- 24.

Sheep in the Pindus Mountains

Sheep in the Pindus mountains heading down to winter pastures.

Teaching Interests

Professor Greene has taught courses on Mediterranean history (16th century to 20th century); the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans.

Ph.D., Princeton, 1993

Research Languages

Greek, Italian, French, Ottoman Turkish and Turkish


Photo credit: Sameer A. Khan / Fotobuddy LLC

Advisee(s):
Area of Interest
Digital History
Eastern Christianity
Environmental History
Immigration & Migration
Landscape Studies
Microhistory
Oral History
Home Department & Other Affiliations
Hellenic Studies
History
Period
15th & 16th Centuries
17th & 18th Centuries
Region
Europe
Mediterranean