Giancarlo Casale is associate professor of History at the University of Minnesota. A specialist in the history of the early modern Ottoman empire, his interests also include the history of geography and cartography, global exploration, and comparative empires. He is the author of The Ottoman Age of Exploration (2010), a history of Ottoman expansion in the Indian Ocean during the sixteenth century. The working title of his next project is “Curiosity and Intolerance: The Paradox of Early Modernity.” This will be a comparative study of the development of ethnographic modes of writing in early modern Europe and the Ottoman Empire. He is also engaged in several smaller research projects on topics including corsairs and the development of Ottoman naval technology, and the connection between naval power and deforestation. He is currently a Fellow at Villa I Tatti.