Ottoman interest in Europe only began once Europe seemed dangerous

Evidence

This lack of interest and empathy continues right into the Ottoman centuries. One is struck by the fact, for example, that the Thirty-Years War—an event that should have interested the Ottomans, raging as it did just beyond their frontiers—is mentioned in the contemporary Ottoman chronicle only in a very brief and error-ridden entry of a couple of pages. But interest in outside history finally begins, as one would expect, with the Ottomans, and it begins when the Ottomans were becoming aware that things were going wrong, that these pic­ turesque barbarians beyond the frontier could actually be dangerous. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1951

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the pattern in Milgrom’s work where institutions emerge once costs rise — knowledge of the Other is only produced under threat.