The Importance of Minorities in the Ottoman Empire

There's this feeling at once that these peoples are inferior and that they're super beings that you can't compete with on level ground. I think this is really a phenomenon of urbanization at this period of time. You know, the popular culture is changing rather rapidly. It's becoming more consumer-oriented, more materialistic. There was a real sense that among Muslims, not just Turks, among Muslims that non-Muslims who tended to be longer-term residents in towns were wealthier but more sophisticated.