Globalization and "Confessionalization" in the Early Modern Mediterranean World
Recent revisionist historiography that seeks to integrate the Ottoman and Safavid Empires into the study of the early modern world typically does so by exploring how these Muslim polities fit into the global economic and diplomatic trends of this era. In these studies, religion is imagined exclusively as a site of difference and is commonly avoided in any debate on globalization. This paper will argue that in the period between the late fifteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries Christendom and Islamdom experienced similar religious developments, most notably the process of "confessionalization." The imperial competition between the Habsburgs and Ottomans, and the Ottomans and Safavids significantly contributed to this globalization of religio-political sensibilities.