MESA Book Awards
Choon Hwee Koh
University of California, Los Angeles
2025 Albert Hourani Book Award Winner
Choon Hwee Koh
The Sublime Post: How the Ottoman Imperial Post Became a Public Service
Yale University Press
The Sublime Post articulates a groundbreaking new framework for rethinking early modern Ottoman history. Drawing on extensive archival research, Koh reconstructs the imperial postal system and the intertwined labors of couriers, villagers, and officials to show how infrastructures of communication deepened governance by extending its reach. Advancing the concept of “thickening of governance,” the book reorients Ottoman historiography beyond prevailing paradigms, revealing how imperial authority and local participation were co-produced through the circulation of labor, information, and obligation. Grounded in empirical rigor and theoretical sophistication, it reframes the historical imagination of empire, well beyond the Ottoman case.