The International Congress on “The SecondConstitutionalPeriod/Meşrutiyet of the Ottoman State on its Centenary” was organizedby IRCICA in Istanbul, on 7-10 May 2008, with the participation of 106 scholars and researchers presenting 102 papers. The papers are published in this book in their original language: English, Turkish or Arabic. The 1839 Tanzimat andthe 1856 Islahat initiatives of the Ottoman State,proclamation of the Constitution andestablishment of theParliament in 1876, subsequentdismissalof theParliament andsuspension of the Constitution, andits reinstatement thirty years later in 1908, each of these events resulted from theinterplayofexternalandinternal factorsbut wereall motivatedbytheobjectiveofkeepingtheempirein unity.This constitutionalprocessof the Ottoman State inspired many attempts ofdemocratization in otherparts of the world. Some of the ensuingpolitical andideological currents constituted turning points in the history of countries. Similar to other examples ofdissolution of empires in the world, thedecline of the Ottoman empire ledto thebirth of new nation-states of varyingsizes and diverse political regimes. Transformations in the mosaic of nations and communities that had emerged from it continued throughout twentieth century. The papers examine the period from various angles: the factors that prepared the reinstatement of the Ottoman Constitution in 1908, the political, social, economic, cultural, legal and other consequences of the Second Constitution in the capital and in the provinces, its echoes in different partsof the empireandin other countriesof the Eastandthe West, its reflections in thepress, in literature, its impacton educational institutions,among other developments.