Summary: 12. Spies for the Sultan. While spies largely work behind the scenes, espionage and the information created and transmitted by agents and informants has historically played a major role in the tactical decision making of states. In this podcast, Emrah Safa Gürkan explains the role of spies in the Early Modern Mediterranean and Ottoman Empire and calls into question the false assumption that spies can be understood as agents with any particular regional or communal allegiance. Rather, as he explains, spies and their information were in fact resources to be fought over and/or bought and sold, and like translators, converts, and merchants, bridged the gap between the Mediterranean's various polities.
