The Sick Vines of Europe: Raisins, Phylloxera, and the Politics of Place in the Late Ottoman Aegean
Journal: Comparative Studies in Society and History
Year: 2025

Abstract This article explores the path of the microscopic phylloxera insect as it made its way from the United States to the Eastern Mediterranean in the late nineteenth century. As the pest devastated vineyards in Western Europe it also catalyzed grape production in the western Ottoman Empire around Izmir, before this region, too, succumbed. One response to the outbreak was the first legal code controlling plant traffic across nations, and another was an effort to plant American rootstocks, wh