This book offers an innovative collaborative approach to the study of a particular region of the Ottoman empire, the southwestern Peloponnese (or Morea), Greece. It combines the study of unpublished Ottoman documents, other historical sources, and the results of diachronic archaeological fieldwork in an examination of the historical and economic geography of the Morea in the early 18th century, the period immediately following the Ottoman reconquest of this region from Venice. Central to the book is a translation of the section of an Ottoman cadastral survey (defter) listing in great detail properties in the district (kaza) of Anavarin (Navarino, modern Pylos). An introductory chapter outlines the history and methodology of the research project, while the translation is followed by chapters that provide a broader context, drawing on other sources for the information contained in the document and the principles behind its composition.
A final chapter summarizes the conclusions drawn from the research, and a series of appendices offer additional detail, including concordances of personal- and place-names, an index of properties described, narrative histories of the two fortresses in the region, and a new English translation of the Anavarin section of the 17th-century Turkish traveler Evliya Celebi's Seyahatname (Travel Book). A CD-ROM with a facsimile of the document itself and colour versions of all illustrations is also included.