Turkey Book Talk

Michelle Lynn Kahn on Turkish migration to Germany

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 05:00:00 +0300

Michelle Lynn Kahn on “Foreign in Two Homelands: Racism, Return Migration and Turkish-German History” (Cambridge University Press).

Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Murat Yıldız on the Ottoman world of sports, modernisation and minorities

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 05:00:00 +0300

Murat Yıldız, associate professor of history at Skidmore College, on “The Ottoman World of Sports: Refashioning Bodies, Men, and Communities in Late Imperial Istanbul” (University of Texas Press)

Berin Gür on the conquest of Istanbul in the Islamist-nationalist imagination

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 05:00:00 +0300

Berin Gür on “The Conquest of Istanbul and the Manipulation of Architecture: The Islamist-Nationalist Rhetoric of Conquest and Melancholy” (Routledge). The book explores how the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul is remembered in Turkey's mainstream official narrative and how architecture contributes to this.

Adnan Khan on the human toll of Turkey's importing of Europe's waste

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 05:00:00 +0300

Journalist Adnan Khan on the spectacular growth of Turkey's plastic waste imports and the role of migrant labour in the sector. His work paints a grim portrait of how the EU-Turkey migration deal and China's banning of plastic waste imports have helped the industry flourish in Turkey - with deadly human consequences.

Burcu Karahan on sexual freedom and women in late Ottoman fiction

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 05:00:00 +0300

Burcu Karahan on her translation of “One Thousand and One Kisses: The Most Joyous and Flirtatious Stories” (Translation Attached). The book brings together 65 stories blending humour and eroticism, published anonymously in 1923-24. The stories are a fascinating time capsule of a vanished age, but much remains unknown about who was behind them.

Mehmet Gurses on the transformation of Turkey's Kurdish issue

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 02:00:00 +0300

Mehmet Gurses on his article “Turkey's Kurdish Conflict Transformed”, published in the Current History journal. The conversation places the PKK's emergence and transformations in a historical context over the past five decades, also weighing up shifts that may be triggered by its current dialogue process with Ankara.

Reuben Silverman on the rise and fall of Turkey's Democrat Party

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Reuben Silverman on “The Rise and Fall of Turkey's Democrat Party: The Cold War and Illiberalism, 1945–60” (Cambridge University Press). Today's AKP government is often placed in the lineage of the Democrat Party, in power for 10 years before being overthrown in a coup in 1960. But as the book shows, the line from the Democrat Party to today is "neither as straight nor as flattering as Erdogan would have it be".

Seçil Daǧtaș on religious difference in Turkey's Hatay

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Seçil Daǧtaș on “Under the Same Sky: Everyday Politics of Religious Difference in Southern Turkey” (University of Pennsylvania Press). The book is an ethnographic study of “the social reproduction of religious differences” in Turkey's uniquely diverse Hatay province.

Senem Aydin-Duzgit on foreign policy weaponisation in Turkish domestic politics

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Senem Aydın-Düzgit on her article “Foreign Policy as Domestic Politics in Populist Competitive Authoritarianism,” published in the South European Society and Politics journal. The conversation looks at how Erdogan uses foreign policy, defence policy and strongman diplomacy to reinforce public backing for the regime in Turkey.

Nora Fisher Onar on Turkish political history beyond binaries

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Nora Fisher Onar on “Contesting Pluralism(s): Islamism, Liberalism, and Nationalism in Turkey and Beyond” (Cambridge University Press). The book challenges the common belief that a binary contest between "Islam" and "secularism" is the driving force behind Turkey's modern history.

Sean Mathews on Greece's regional comeback amid rivalry with Turkey

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Sean Mathews on “The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and Return of the Near East” (Hurst). The book examines Greece's comeback as a regional player, arguing that this has been triggered in large part by neighbouring Turkey's own increasing assertiveness.

Perin Gurel on the history of comparing Turkey and Iran in the West

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Perin Gurel on “Türkiye, Iran, and the Politics of Comparison: America's Wife, America's Concubine” (Cambridge University Press). The book explores the cultural history of Turkey–Iran comparisons in the West, from Cold War-era modernisation theory to post-9/11 studies of “moderate Islam”.

Gokhan Bacik on Turkey's citizenship-selling programme

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Gokhan Bacik on his article “Selling Citizenship in Turkey: Political Parties, Pragmatism, and Polarization,” recently published in the journal “Nationalism and Ethnic Politics”. The article examines the government's Citizenship By Investment scheme, its economic and social consequences, and the way it has been discussed – or avoided – in the national political debate.

Amy Marie Spangler on Leyla Erbil's dark vision of Istanbul's history

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Amy Marie Spangler on the late great author Leyla Erbil's What Remains. First published in 2011, the book is a multilayered narrative that sweeps from the Byzantine Empire to 20th century Turkey. It is also a dark elegy to the Istanbul of eras past and all that has been lost in its transformation.

Özgür Özkan on the 'dangerous illusion' of Turkey's PKK peace bid

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Özgür Özkan, visiting scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, on the domestic and regional implications of Turkey's push for the Kurdish militant group's dissolution. The conversation digs into issues raised by his recent article “Turkey's Dangerous Illusion of Peace with the PKK”.

Christopher Dole on psychiatry and disaster in Turkey

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Christopher Dole on “Living On: Psychiatry and the Future of Disaster in Turkey” (Stanford University Press). The book examines the psychiatric response to the deadly 1999 Marmara Earthquake, examining the legacy of the earthquake in the lives of its survivors and the Turkish mental health professionals who responded to it.

Mustafa Kutlay on Turkey's middle power dilemmas

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Mustafa Kutlay on his recent Foreign Affairs article “Turkey's Middle-Power Dilemma”, examining the successes and failures of Ankara's bid to carve out a greater role in the emerging multipolar world.

Bilge Yabancı on Turkey's civil society under siege

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Bilge Yabancı on “Civil Society and Authoritarianism: Co-optation, Repression and Contestation in Turkey” (Edinburgh University Press). The book examines the transformation of civil society groups under pressure from mounting authoritarianism.

Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Erik-Jan Zürcher on imperial nostalgia in Turkey and Britain

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 03:00:00 +0300

Erik-Jan Zürcher on the uses and abuses of nostalgia for empire in contemporary Turkey and the UK. The conversation is based on Zurcher's recent lecture at the Istanbul Policy Center, “The Poison of Nostalgia”, which compared neo-Ottomanist tendencies in Turkey with the view of empire in Britain's Brexit debate.

Talin Suciyan on Armenians in Turkey after World War Two

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Talin Suciyan on “Armenians in Turkey after the Second World War: An Archival Reader of USSR Consular Documents” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury). The book examines the oral testimonies of Armenians who registered to migrate to Soviet Armenia.

David Tonge on the enduring hold of Islamic orders in Turkey

Tue, 27 May 2025 05:00:00 +0300

David Tonge on “The Enduring Hold of Islam in Turkey: The Revival of the Religious Orders and Rise of Erdogan” (Hurst). The book explores the political, economic and social influence of key Islamic orders in the country over the last few decades.

Richard Calis on Martin Crusius and the discovery of Ottoman Greece

Tue, 13 May 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Richard Calis on “The Discovery of Ottoman Greece: Knowledge, Encounter, and Belief in the Mediterranean World of Martin Crusius” (Harvard University Press).

Fiona Mullen on the Cyprus question amid growing geopolitical uncertainty

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Fiona Mullen, director of the Nicosia-based Sapienta Economics consultancy, on uncertainty around the future of the decades-long Cyprus divide amid mounting geopolitical uncertainty and regional competition.

Bilge Yesil on Turkey's narrowing media landscape

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Bilge Yesil on Turkey's narrowing media landscape and internet crackdown amid political turbulence, protests and mounting pressure on critics.

Berk Esen on whether Turkey has shifted from authoritarianism to autocracy

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Berk Esen on whether Ekrem Imamoglu's arrest heralds Turkey's shift from competitive authoritarianism to autocracy, dynamics driving the government's crackdown, the international context, and critical choices facing the country's opposition.

Cuma Çiçek on PKK disarmament and the future of Turkey's Kurdish issue

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Cuma Çiçek, author of “The Kurds of Turkey: National, Religious and Economic Identities” (IB Tauris), on the dynamics behind Ankara's push for the PKK's dissolution, what it means for Turkish politics and what it means for the future of the Kurdish issue.

Selim Koru on Turkey's role in the emerging anti-liberal world order

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Selim Koru on "New Turkey and the Far Right: How Reactionary Nationalism Remade a Country" (IB Tauris). The book dives deep into the worldview driving Turkey's regime change in recent years, and its profound domestic and foreign policy implications.

Claudia Liebelt on cosmetic surgery and perceptions of beauty in Turkey

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Claudia Liebelt on "Istanbul Appearances: Beauty and the Making of Middle-Class Femininities in Urban Turkey" (Syracuse University Press). Based on research in beauty salons and cosmetic centres across Istanbul, the book explores the cosmetic sector's extraordinary growth in recent years.

Brett Wilson on Yakup Kadri's controversial late Ottoman novel 'Nur Baba'

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Brett Wilson on his translation of Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoglu's 1922 novel "Nur Baba" (Routledge). The book's account of a debauched Bektashi Sufi lodge caused a sensation at the time, raising eyebrows with its depiction of an immoral, even degenerate religious community in turn-of-the-century Istanbul. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.

Omar Kadkoy on the future of Syrian migrants in Turkey

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Omar Kadkoy, foreign policy, security and migration program coordinator at Heinrich Böll Stiftung's Istanbul office, on the future of Turkey's Syrian migrant population after the fall of Assad.

Become a member on Patreon or Substack to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.

Zozan Pehlivan on climatic shifts behind late Ottoman conflicts

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 05:00:00 +0300

Zozan Pehlivan on "The Political Ecology of Violence: Peasants and Pastoralists in the Last Ottoman Century" (Cambridge University Press). The book explores how extreme climate disruptions were a major factor behind tensions between Christian Armenian peasants and Muslim Kurdish pastoralists in eastern Anatolia in the 19th century.

Samuel Hirst on a century of Ankara-Moscow cooperation

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 05:00:00 +0300

Samuel J. Hirst on "Against the Liberal Order: The Soviet Union, Turkey, and Statist Internationalism, 1919-1939" (Oxford University Press). The conversation addresses key episodes of collaboration between Ankara and Moscow on political, industrial and cultural projects since the early republican era.

Ralph Hubbell on the work of Turkish literary giant Oğuz Atay

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 23:18:10 +0300

Ralph Hubbell on translating Oğuz Atay's "Waiting for the Fear" (New York Review Books). Atay is widely seen as one the great Turkish fiction writers of the 20th century, but has largely yet to appear in English until now.

Jennifer Hattam on Istanbul's shifting cultural landscape

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 05:00:00 +0300

Jennifer Hattam reflects on a decade-and-a-half of reporting on Turkey's environmental, political and cultural agenda, as well as wrenching changes in journalism and staying afloat amid Istanbul's relentless urban upheaval.

Salim Çevik on Turkey's Middle East reset

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 05:00:00 +0300

Salim Çevik on his recent SWP paper "Turkey’s Reconciliation Efforts in the Middle East: Ambitions and Constraints in a Changing Regional Order". The paper examines Erdogan's shift away from trying to overthrow the established regional order towards rapprochement with Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Syria and others.

Orçun Selçuk on populist polarisation in Turkey and Latin America

Tue, 22 Oct 2024 04:00:00 +0300

Orçun Selçuk on "The Authoritarian Divide: Populism, Propaganda, and Polarization" (University of Notre Dame Press). The book compares Turkey under Erdoğan, Venezuela under Chávez and Ecuador under Correa, showing that Turkey's experience can be more usefully compared with Latin American examples than cases of right-wing populism in Europe or Islamism in the Middle East.

Ezgi Başaran on the new spirit of Islamism

Tue, 08 Oct 2024 05:00:00 +0300

Ezgi Başaran on "The New Spirit of Islamism: Interactions Between the AKP, Ennahda and the Muslim Brotherhood" (IB Tauris). The book looks at the aspirations of Islamist actors in Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia from 2011 to 2013, seeking to understand how they viewed each other and whether they prioritised pragmatism or religious ideology.

Samim Akgönül on 100 years of Turkish-Greek relations

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 04:00:00 +0300

Samim Akgönül, director of the Department of Turkish Studies at the University of Strasbourg, on "One Hundred Years of Greek-Turkish Relations: The Human Dimension of an Ongoing Conflict" (Edinburgh University Press)

Çağdaş Üngör on Turkey's geopolitical dilemmas in the Asia-Pacific century

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 05:00:00 +0300

Çağdaş Üngör discusses her recent articles "A Bridge No More? Turkiye’s Geopolitical Significance in the 21st Century" in the journal Survival and "A 'Bridge' Pushed to the Periphery? Turkey's Geopolitical Significance in the Asia-Pacific Century" in Turkish Studies.

Karabekir Akkoyunlu on religion and democracy in Turkey and Iran

Tue, 27 Aug 2024 05:00:00 +0300

Karabekir Akkoyunlu, Lecturer in Politics and International Studies at SOAS, on "Guardianship and Democracy in Iran and Turkey: Tutelary Consolidation, Popular Contestation" (Edinburgh University Press).

Eugene Rogan on communal violence and the end of the old Ottoman world

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 06:00:00 +0300

Eugene Rogan on "The Damascus Events: The 1860 Massacre and the Destruction of the Old Ottoman World" (Allen Lane). The book examines how in July 1860 Damascus exploded in communal violence when a mostly Muslim crowd tried to exterminate the Christian community, after hundreds of years of relative peace and coexistence.

Umit Kurt on Gaziantep's forgotten Armenian past

Tue, 30 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0300

Umit Kurt on "The Armenians of Aintab: The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province" (Harvard University Press). The book draws on archival sources, memoirs, personal papers, oral accounts and property liquidation records to detail the dispossession of Antep's Armenian community and the transfer of their wealth to Ottoman and later Turkish Muslim elites.

Ozge Samanci on visualising Istanbul's sociopolitical currents

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0300

Ozge Samanci on her graphic novel “Evil Eyes Sea” (Uncivilized Books). The semi-autobiographical story is a murder mystery centred on a group of students at Istanbul's Boğaziçi University in the 1990s. It follows up from her highly successful graphic novel “Dare to Disappoint”.

Sami Kent on stories from Turkey’s first hundred years

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0300

Sami Kent on “The Endless Country: A Personal Journey Through Turkey’s First Hundred Years” (Picador). The book paints a portrait of Turkey by combining accounts of key events with Sami’s personal reflections on growing up learning about his paternal homeland from afar, before coming to work in the country as a journalist.

Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.

Bradley Secker on the pleasures and perils of photojournalism in Istanbul

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0300

Istanbul-based photojournalist Bradley Secker discusses his work on migration, LGBT+ asylum seekers in the Middle East and Europe, the difficulties of practicing journalism in Turkey and the broader state of photojournalism.

Bilge Yesil on Turkey’s global media operations

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0300

Bilge Yesil on “Talking Back to the West: How Turkey Uses Counter-Hegemony to Reshape the Global Communication Order” (University of Illinois Press). The book examines how Erdogan's regime has mobilised English-language media to counter foreign criticism and project Turkey as a rising power opposed to Western imperialism, supposedly giving a voice to oppressed Muslims around the world.

Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky on Muslim refugees in the Ottoman Empire

Tue, 21 May 2024 00:00:00 +0300

Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky on “Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State” (Stanford University Press). The book explores the forced migration from the Russian Empire of around one million Muslims, who settled in the Ottoman Empire between the 1850s and World War One.

Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Patreon members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.

Emre Toros on Turkey between democracy and authoritarianism

Tue, 07 May 2024 00:00:00 +0300

Emre Toros on “Electoral Integrity in Turkey” (Edinburgh University Press). The book weighs up the country's democratic credentials after over two decades of rule by Erdogan's party, painting an ambivalent picture combining both optimism and pessimism.

Christopher Phillips on Turkey’s place in Middle East turbulence

Tue, 23 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0300

Christopher Phillips on “Battleground: Ten Conflicts that Explain the New Middle East” (Yale University Press). The conversation explores the region's shifting rivalries, as well as how Turkey’s push for greater influence in Syria, Iraq and Libya has impacted its ties with other ambitious powers.

Seda Demiralp on Turkey’s surprise local election results

Tue, 09 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0300

Seda Demiralp on what the recent local election results mean for Turkish politics. The conversation takes in what the main opposition CHP did right, what the ruling AKP did wrong, the emerging challenge to Erdogan posed by the Yeniden Refah Party, and the performance of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party.

Andrew Finkel on Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II and Sherlock Holmes

Tue, 26 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0300

Andrew Finkel, a veteran journalist based in Turkey for decades, on his debut novel “The Adventure of the Second Wife: The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and the Ottoman Sultan” (Even Keel Press). It is a sprawling story exploring the mystery of Abdulhamid II’s obsession with Sherlock Holmes.

Bahar Baser on Turkey's brain drain

Tue, 12 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0300

Bahar Baser on “An Exodus from Turkey: Tales of Migration and Exile” (Edinburgh University Press), co-edited with Erdi Ozturk. The book examines the current wave of migration from Turkey, focusing on the experiences of 21 different public figures living overseas.

Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.

İlkay Yılmaz on the origins of the Ottoman Turkish security state

Tue, 27 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0300

İlkay Yılmaz on “Ottoman Passports: Security and Geographic Mobility, 1876-1908” (Syracuse University Press). The book examines how paranoia about nationalist, anarchist and revolutionary movements spread during the era of Abdulhamid II, prompting new methods aiming to control subjects of the Ottoman state.

Alexander Christie-Miller on Turkey and the people of Istanbul’s historic walls

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0300

Alexander Christie-Miller on “To The City: Life and Death Along the Ancient Walls of Istanbul” (William Collins). He worked for many years as the Times of London's Turkey correspondent and his book is a sophisticated meditation on contemporary life and politics in the country.

Tuğba Tekerek on the crisis in Turkish academia

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0300

Tuğba Tekerek on “Provincial Universities: The AK Party’s Backyard Campus" (İletişim). The book examines the government's push to open over 100 universities across Turkey over the past two decades, painting a picture of falling academic standards but increased outlets for the ruling party's religious nationalist ideology.

Timur Hammond on religion and change in Istanbul

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0300

Timur Hammond on “Placing Islam: Geographies of Connection in Twentieth-Century Istanbul” (University of California Press). The book is a sociological and historical study tracing the changing character of Istanbul's Eyüpsultan district, its industrial and commercial history, and its role in the emergence of political Islam in Turkey.

İlkim Büke Okyar on Arabs in Turkish popular culture

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0300

İlkim Büke Okyar on “Arabs in Turkish Political Cartoons, 1876-1950: National Self and Non-National Other” (Syracuse University Press). The conversation addresses how Arabs are typically viewed in Turkish popular culture, also examining the impact of the influx of Syrian migrants since 2011 and the Israel-Gaza war.

Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Berk Esen on the future of Turkey’s opposition and the fate of its democracy

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Berk Esen on the troubled future of Turkey’s democracy and the challenges facing its opposition parties heading into 2024. Berk recently co-authored “Turkey’s New Regime: Competitive Authoritarianism” (Iletisim) along with Hakan Yavuzyilmaz and Sebnem Gumuscu.

Sinem Adar on Turkey’s dilemmas amid the Israel-Gaza war

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Sinem Adar, associate at the Centre for Applied Turkey Studies at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, on Turkey’s response to the Israel-Gaza war. The conversation builds on her recent article arguing that the crisis shows the limits of Turkey’s regional influence.

Cihan Dizdaroğlu on Turkey-Greece ties through turbulence and rapprochement

Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Cihan Dizdaroğlu on “Turkish-Greek Relations: Foreign Policy in a Securitisation Framework” (Edinburgh University Press). The book looks at how ties between Athens and Ankara have gone through various cycles of improvement and deterioration from the early Republic of Turkey to today.

Alp Yenen on weighing up the Republic of Turkey’s legacy at 100 years

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Alp Yenen on “A Hundred Years of Republican Turkey: A History in a Hundred Fragments” (Leiden University Press). The book includes 100 chapters, written by over 70 scholars, examining different aspects of Turkey's political, social, cultural and economic history on the centenary of the republic's founding.

Nilay Özok-Gündoğan on political authority in Ottoman Kurdistan

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Nilay Özok-Gündoğan on “The Kurdish Nobility in the Ottoman Empire: Loyalty, Autonomy and Privilege” (Edinburgh University Press). The book narrates the rise and fall of the Kurdish nobility in the Ottoman east, as well as how their autonomy was abolished as the empire modernised and centralised from the 19th century.

Onur İşçi on post-war Turkey-Soviet relations and Ankara’s ties with Russia today

Tue, 03 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Onur İşçi on “Turkey at a Crossroads: The Soviet Threat and Postwar Realignment, 1945-1946”, published in the journal Diplomatic History. The article reexamines the time when the Soviet Union made military and territorial demands, ultimately pushing Turkey towards Nato. The conversation also touches on Ankara's complicated present-day policy towards Moscow.

Spyros Sofos on Turkey’s many nationalisms

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Spyros Sofos on “Turkish Politics and ‘The People’: Mass Mobilisation and Populism” (Edinburgh University Press). The book delves into the ambiguities behind the term “the people” from the late Ottoman era to today, and how religious, secularist, left-wing and right-wing projects have used it for different ends.

Pat Yale on travelling around Turkey in the footsteps of Gertrude Bell

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Pat Yale on “Following Miss Bell: Travels Around Turkey in the Footsteps of Gertrude Bell” (Trailblazer). The book tracks the footsteps of archaeologist, writer and explorer Gertrude Bell, who travelled extensively throughout Anatolia from 1899 until the outbreak of the First World War.

Anthony Bigio on Gad Franco, Sephardi Turkish patriot in times of turmoil

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Anthony Gad Bigio on “A Sephardi Turkish Patriot: Gad Franco in the Turmoil of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic” (Hamilton Books). The book describes the turbulent and difficult life of Gad Franco, a prominent journalist, social activist and lawyer in the late Ottoman and early republican eras.

James Meyer on the life and times of Nazim Hikmet and his generation

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0300

James Meyer on “Red Star over the Black Sea: Nazım Hikmet and His Generation” (Oxford University Press), a new biography of the great 20th century poet. It draws on previously untapped archival sources to situate Nazım Hikmet within a broader generation of border-crossing Turkish communists.

Şebnem Gümüşcü on the past and future of Islamism in Turkey

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Şebnem Gümüşcü on “Democracy or Authoritarianism: Islamist Governments in Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia” (Cambridge University Press). The book looks in depth at how intra-party factional struggles were key in shaping the AKP’s authoritarian direction, while also comparing this with Islamist parties in Egypt and Tunisia.

Constanze Letsch on gentrification and displacement in Istanbul

Tue, 11 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Constanze Letsch on “Territorial Stigmatisation: Urban Renewal and Displacement in a Central Istanbul Neighbourhood” (Transcript). The book examines a controversial project to demolish and rebuild Istanbul's historic, troubled Tarlabaşı neighbourhood, the impact it had on locals, and what it tells us about today's Turkey.

Ci Demi on his surreal, unsettling photographs of Istanbul

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Ci Demi on his photographs of Istanbul, which present an eerie, unflattering image of the city through depopulated landscapes, urban sprawl and surreal juxtapositions. His new photobook "Sehri Fikri" (Notions of a City) is published by Onagöre.

Derin Koçer on how Erdogan won and why Turkey’s opposition failed

Tue, 13 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Derin Koçer discusses Turkey’s election. The conversation addresses how economic woes may actually have helped Erdogan’s campaign, why the main opposition CHP repeatedly fails, whether nationalism is the real winner to emerge from the ballot boxes, and what awaits Turkey in the next five years.

Demet Aslı Çaltekin on militarism and conscientious objection in Turkey

Tue, 30 May 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Demet Aslı Çaltekin on “Conscientious Objection in Turkey: A Socio-legal Analysis of the Right to Refuse Military Service” (Edinburgh University Press). The conversation addresses the ubiquity of militarism and nationalism in Turkey, and the impact on people who refuse to do their compulsory military service.

Aron Aji on the unsettling work of Turkish novelist Ferit Edgü

Tue, 16 May 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Aron Aji discusses the life and work of Turkish author Ferit Edgü. Aji’s translations of Edgu’s excellent, austere novellas “The Wounded Age” and “Eastern Tales” were recently published in a new single volume by New York Review Books. Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Tezcan Gümüş on enduring authoritarianism in Turkey’s democratic history

Tue, 02 May 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Tezcan Gümüş on “Turkey's Political Leaders: Authoritarian Tendencies in a Democratic State” (Edinburgh University Press). The book shows how almost all major leaders in Turkey’s multi-party history have demonstrated authoritarian traits, reflecting and fostering the various failings of Turkey’s democratic system.

Paul Levin on Turks and Kurds in Sweden, geopolitics and Nato

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Paul Levin, director of Stockholm University’s Institute for Turkish Studies, on the power dynamics of Turkish and Kurdish communities in Sweden and the imbroglio over Stockholm's bid to join Nato. Levin is co-author of “Migration from Turkey to Sweden: Integration, Belonging and Transnational Community” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury). Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Maureen Freely on the turbulent life and work of Turkish author Tezer Özlü

Tue, 04 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Maureen Freely on the life and work of the late Tezer Özlü. Her translation of Özlü’s 1980 novel “Cold Nights of Childhood” has just been published for the first time in English by Serpent’s Tail.

Doğan Gürpınar on the intellectual order of populist Islamism in Turkey

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Doğan Gürpınar, historian at Istanbul Technical University, on “Apparatchiks and Ideologues in Islamist Turkey: The Intellectual Order of Islamism and Populism” (Palgrave Macmillan).

Nesi Altaras on Turkish Jews applying for Spanish and Portuguese citizenship

Tue, 07 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Nesi Altaras on “A Privilege That Cannot Be Bought: Jews of Turkey and Citizenship Restitution from Portugal and Spain” (Libra Books). The book weighs up the motivations of Turkish Jews applying for Spanish and Portuguese passports, after both countries allowed Sephardic Jews to "reclaim" citizenship.

Selim Koru on Turkey’s earthquakes and their political aftershocks

Tue, 21 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Selim Koru on the devastating recent earthquakes. The conversation compares their effect with the Marmara earthquake of 1999, as well as touching on the Erdogan government's response, the potential social, political and economic consequences, and the possible impact on Turkey's foreign policy.

Please consider supporting one of the groups involved in post-earthquake relief measures in Turkey and Syria.

Çağdaş Üngör on what Turkey and China want from Sino-Turkish relations

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Çağdaş Üngör, professor of political science and international relations at Marmara University, on the history of Turkey-China ties, Turkish public perceptions of China, Ankara's stance on China’s treatment of its Uyghur minority, and Beijing’s efforts to craft its message to Turkish public opinion.

Mostafa Minawi on Arab-Ottoman imperialists at the end of empire

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Mostafa Minawi on “Losing Istanbul: Arab-Ottoman Imperialists and the End of Empire” (Stanford University Press). The book follows the rise and fall of a generation of Arab-origin figures who flourished in the Ottoman capital in the final years before the empire collapsed.

Greg Goalwin on religious nationalism and identity in Turkey and Ireland

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Gregory Goalwin on “Borders of Belief: Religious Nationalism and the Formation of Identity in Ireland and Turkey” (Rutgers University Press). The book explores Catholicism in Ireland and Islam in Turkey served as fundamental building blocks of the two countries' national identity through the 20th century.

Derya Ozkul on Alevis in contemporary Turkey and abroad

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Derya Ozkul on “The Alevis in Modern Turkey and the Diaspora: Recognition, Mobilisation and Transformation” (Edinburgh University Press), a volume she co-edited with Hege Markussen.

Ryan Gingeras on the last days of the Ottoman Empire, 1918-1922

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Ryan Gingeras on “The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire 1918-1922” (Allen Lane). The conversation addresses events between the end of the First World War and the declaration of the Turkish Republic, while also touching on how these years are remembered in today's Turkey.

Enno Maessen on nostalgia and cosmopolitanism in Istanbul’s Beyoglu

Tue, 22 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Enno Maessen, lecturer in political history at Utrecht University, on “Representing Modern Istanbul: Urban History and International Institutions in Twentieth Century Beyoglu” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury). The book examines convulsive changes in Istanbul's historical Beyoglu district over the past century.

Gönül Tol on Erdogan’s wars at home and abroad

Tue, 08 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Gönül Tol, director of the Turkey program at the Middle East Institute, on “Erdogan’s War: A Strongman’s Struggle at Home and in Syria” (Oxford University Press). The book describes how developments in Syria have helped Turkey's president divide and eliminate his domestic rivals and consolidate his base.

Elise Massicard on muhtars, the state and society in Turkey

Tue, 25 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Elise Massicard on “Street-Level Governing: Negotiating the State in Urban Turkey” (Stanford University Press). The book dives deep into the world of muhtars, the lowest administrative rung in Turkey, looking first-hand at how they chart a course between local residents and higher authorities in the country.

Jonathan Parry on British encounters with the Ottomans

Tue, 11 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Jonathan Parry, Professor of Modern British History at the University of Cambridge, on “Promised Lands: The British and the Ottoman Middle East” (Princeton University Press). The book charts British engagement with the Ottoman authorities and local communities across the Middle East in the 19th century.

Sevgi Adak on anti-veiling campaigns in Turkey

Tue, 27 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Sevgi Adak on “Anti-Veiling Campaigns in Turkey: State, Society and Gender in the Early Republic” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury). The book examines measures taken by the authorities against women’s veiling, as well as other forms of clothing, in the 1920s and 1930s.

Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Galip Dalay on the nuances of Turkey’s Middle East reset

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Galip Dalay on his Middle East Council on Global Affairs paper “Turkey’s Middle East Reset: A Precursor for Reescalation?” The piece looks at Ankara's bid to mend fences with previously bitter rivals including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel, the challenges it faces, and some of the exceptions.

Jan-Markus Vomel on Islamism and masculinity in Turkey

Tue, 30 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Jan-Markus Vomel on his article “Pathos and Discipline: Islamist Masculinity in Turkey, 1950-2000”, published in the journal Zeithistorische Forschungen. The piece explores how Turkish Islamism weaponised ideas of virility and manliness against what it saw as the emasculating forces of secularism and Westernisation.

Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Saniye Dedeoğlu on Syrian migrants, work and precarity in Turkey

Tue, 16 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Saniye Dedeoglu on “Syrian Refugees and Agriculture in Turkey Work, Precarity, Survival” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury). The book looks at Syrians' integration into Turkey’s labour market, its effect on relations between men and women, and the role of child labour in the agriculture sector.

Gönül Bozoğlu on the politics of history in contemporary Turkey

Tue, 02 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Gönül Bozoğlu on “Museums, Emotion and Memory Culture: The Politics of the Past in Turkey” (Routledge). The book examines Istanbul's Panorama 1453 Museum and Ankara's Atatürk and War of Independence Museum to show how history in Turkey is often a battleground where contemporary identities clash for supremacy.

Murat Somer on reframing Turkey’s Kurdish question

Tue, 19 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Murat Somer on “Return to Point Zero: The Turkish-Kurdish Question and How Politics and Ideas (Re)Make Empires, Nations and States” (SUNY Press). The book examines how Turkey's Kurdish question emerged decades ago and why that formative period is still crucial today.

Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Dimitar Bechev on Turkey’s trajectory under Erdoğan

Tue, 05 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Dimitar Bechev on “Turkey Under Erdogan: How a Country Turned from Democracy and the West” (Yale University Press). The book gives a neat overview of how the country and President Erdogan came to where they are today, ahead of crucial elections scheduled for next year.

Amy Marie Spangler on Leyla Erbil, strange woman of 20th century Turkish literature

Tue, 21 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Amy Marie Spangler on the great author Leyla Erbil (1931-2013) and her novel "A Strange Woman", first published in 1971. Spangler just co-translated a new English edition of the book, published by Deep Vellum, building on an original translation by Nermin Menemencioğlu.

Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Murat Metinsoy on resistance and dissent in early republican Turkey

Tue, 07 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Murat Metinsoy on “The Power of the People: Everyday Resistance and Dissent in the Making of Modern Turkey, 1923-38” (Cambridge University Press). The book examines how ordinary people's reaction to Kemalist reforms shaped, modified or softened how those reforms were implemented on the ground.

Reuben Silverman on modern Turkey’s social, political and geographic margins

Tue, 24 May 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Reuben Silverman on “Borderline Personalities: Lives at the Political, Social and Geographic Edges of Modern Turkey” (Libra Books). The book brings together pieces from his website largely focusing on figures from the political, social and cultural margins to illuminate broader themes of modern Turkish history.

Sarah-Neel Smith on art and development in mid-20th century Turkey

Tue, 10 May 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Sarah-Neel Smith on “Metrics of Modernity: Art and Development in Postwar Turkey” (University of California Press). The book paints a vivid portrait of Turkey's art world in the 1950s and how it reflected early Cold War ideas of national development, individual enterprise and global integration.

Suat Kınıklıoğlu on Eurasianism in Turkey

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Suat Kınıklıoğlu on his report “Eurasianism in Turkey”, published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs' Centre for Applied Turkey Studies. The report examines the influence of Turkish-style Eurasianism, a worldview favouring Ankara's break from Nato in favour of strategic alignment with Russia and/or China.

Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Birol Başkan on Islamism and Turkish foreign policy

Tue, 12 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Birol Başkan on “The Nation or the Ummah: Islamism and Turkish Foreign Policy” (SUNY Press), co-written with Ömer Taşpınar. The book examines Turkey's foreign policy during the Arab Spring era, when Ankara threw its weight behind protest movements seeking to overthrow established regimes around the Middle East.

Andrea Lemieux on the pleasures of Turkish wine

Tue, 29 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Andrea Lemieux on “The Essential Guide to Turkish Wine”, covering the regions, grapes and history of winemaking in Turkey, as well as the political and economic challenges facing producers in the country today.

Noah Amir Arjomand on fixers and journalism in Turkey and Syria

Tue, 15 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Noah Amir Arjomand on “Fixing Stories: Local Newsmaking and International Media in Turkey and Syria" (Cambridge University Press). The book is a detailed study of the role of fixers - locals who intermediate between journalists and sources - in international coverage on Turkey and Syria.

York Norman on Celal Nuri, Young Turk moderniser and Muslim nationalist

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 00:20:41 +0300

York Norman on “Celal Nuri: Young Turk Modernizer and Muslim Nationalist” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury). The book examines the life of Celal Nuri, a journalist and politician whose career spanned the late Ottoman and early republican periods.

Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-Seal on the occupation of Istanbul through British eyes

Tue, 15 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-Seal on “Britain's Levantine Empire, 1914-1923” (Oxford University Press). The book examines British military occupation in Istanbul, Salonica and Alexandria through the letters, diaries and memoirs of servicemen during and after the First World War.

Dilek Kurban on Turkey, the Kurdish question and the ECHR

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Dilek Kurban, Max Weber postdoctoral fellow at the European University Institute and adjunct faculty at the Hertie School in Berlin, on “Limits of Supranational Justice: The European Court of Human Rights and Turkey’s Kurdish Conflict” (Cambridge University Press).

Hakan Özoğlu on Mark Bristol and the founding of US-Turkey ties in the 20th century

Tue, 18 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Hakan Özoğlu on “The Decline of the Ottoman Empire and the Rise of the Turkish Republic: Observations of an American Diplomat, 1919-1927” (Edinburgh University Press). The book examines the work of Admiral Mark Bristol, US high commissioner in Istanbul as the Ottoman Empire collapsed and the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923.

Çiğdem Oğuz on moral panic and westernisation in the late Ottoman era and today

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0300

Çiğdem Oğuz on “Moral Crisis in the Ottoman Empire: Society, Politics and Gender during WWI” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury). The book examines debates about morality in the late Ottoman era, when mounting European cultural influence triggered anxiety about the loss of traditional religious values.

Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 30% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Murat Siviloğlu on the emergence of public opinion in the late Ottoman Empire

Tue, 21 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Murat R. Siviloğlu on “The Emergence of Public Opinion: State and Society in the Late Ottoman Empire” (Cambridge University Press). The book argues that Ottoman society developed a realm of “public opinion” that had a crucial effect on political developments in the late 19th century.

Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 30% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Ramazan Aras on the past and present of the Turkey-Syria border

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Ramazan Aras on “The Wall: The Making and Unmaking of the Turkish-Syrian Border” (Palgrave Macmillan). The book examines the effect on local Kurdish communities of the foundation of the Turkey-Syria border in 1923 and its later hardening, leading most recently to the building of a security wall along its length.

Maureen Freely on rediscovering leftist Turkish novelist Suat Derviş

Tue, 23 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Maureen Freely discusses the eventful life of leftist woman novelist Suat Derviş (1904-1972), as well as her recently published translation of Derviş's “In the Shadow of the Yalı” (Other Press).

Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 30% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Marc David Baer on the Ottomans as khans, caesars and caliphs

Tue, 09 Nov 2021 00:06:49 +0300

Marc David Baer on “The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars and Caliphs” (Basic Books). The book argues for the Ottoman Empire as an inseparable part of European history - not as antithesis of the Christian West but as an intimate and active participant in the continent's shifting cultural and political tides.

Federico Donelli on Turkey‘s push into Africa

Tue, 26 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Federico Donelli on “Turkey in Africa: Turkey's Strategic Involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury). The book looks at Ankara's bid to boost its diplomatic, cultural, economic and security influence in Africa, the effects it has had on the ground, and what to expect in the coming years.

Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 30% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Yonca Köksal on Ottoman modernisation from the ground up

Tue, 12 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Yonca Köksal on “The Ottoman Empire in the Tanzimat Era: Provincial Perspectives from Ankara to Edirne” (Routledge). The book compares the empire's modernising, centralising reforms of the 19th century in the Balkan province of Edirne and the central Anatolian province of Ankara.

Giancarlo Casale on Osman of Timişoara, Ottoman captive in 17th century Europe

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Giancarlo Casale on “Prisoner of the Infidels: The Memoir of an Ottoman Muslim in 17th Century Europe” (UC Press). Casale edited and translated the book, the first English-language edition of Osman of Timişoara's fascinating memoir describing his years as prisoner and slave in the Habsburg Empire from 1688 to 1699.

Soner Çağaptay on the crises facing Turkey’s Erdoğan

Tue, 14 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Soner Çağaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, on “A Sultan in Autumn: Erdogan Faces Turkey's Uncontrollable Forces” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury). The book describes the myriad challenges facing the Turkish president at home and abroad.

Support Turkey Book Talk by becoming a member. Members get a 30% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Natalie Rothman on dragomans of the Ottoman Empire, between East and West

Tue, 31 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Natalie Rothman on “The Dragoman Renaissance: Diplomatic Interpreters and the Routes of Orientalism” (Cornell University Press). The book shows how Istanbul-based translator-interpreters were key in shaping outside understanding of the Ottoman Empire, as well as in the Ottoman elites' diplomatic moves.

Ömer Tekdemir on the Kurdish issue from the 19th century to today

Tue, 17 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Ömer Tekdemir on “Constituting the Political Economy of the Kurds: Social Embeddedness, Hegemony and Identity” (Routledge). The book is a sweeping account of the social, political and economic circumstances shaping the emergence of collective Kurdish identity from the late Ottoman era to today's Turkey.

Nicholas Danforth on memory and modernity in contemporary Turkey

Tue, 03 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Nicholas Danforth on “The Remaking of Republican Turkey: Memory and Modernity since the Fall of the Ottoman Empire” (Cambridge University Press). The book upends conventional wisdom about social and political shifts from 1945 to 1960, with many implications for our understanding of today's Turkey.

Buke Uras on the Balyan family and the Ottoman Armenian architectural legacy

Tue, 20 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Büke Uras on “The Balyans: Ottoman Architecture and the Balyan Archive” (Korpus). The Balyan family served as Ottoman imperial architects for three generations in the 19th century and are responsible for some of Istanbul's most iconic monuments, including Dolmabahçe Palace and Ortaköy Mosque.

Suna Çağaptay on the many lives of Bursa from antiquity to today

Tue, 06 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Suna Çağaptay on “The First Capital of the Ottoman Empire: The Religious, Architectural and Social History of Bursa” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury). The book examines Bursa's history from antiquity to today, particularly its hybrid and plural character after transitioning from Byzantine to Ottoman rule in the 14th century.

Dimitris Kamouzis on the emergence of Greek nationalism in Ottoman Istanbul

Tue, 22 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Dimitris Kamouzis on “Greeks in Turkey: Elite Nationalism and Minority Politics in Late Ottoman and Early Republican Istanbul” (Routledge). The book explores the spread of nationalism and ideas of unity with Greece among Istanbul's Greek Orthodox community from the 19th century to 1923 and beyond.

Christine Philliou on reimagining Turkish history and the roots of political dissent

Tue, 08 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Christine Philliou, associate professor of history at UC Berkeley, on “Turkey: A Past Against History” (University of California Press). The book examines the life of the writer Refik Halid Karay (1888-1965), interrogating the shifting meaning of political dissent from Ottoman to republican eras.

Support Turkey Book Talk by becoming a member. Members get a 30% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Malte Fuhrmann on cosmopolitan life in port cities of the late Ottoman era

Tue, 25 May 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Malte Fuhrmann, research fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, on “Port Cities of the East Mediterranean: Urban Culture in the Late Ottoman Empire” (Cambridge University Press). The book paints a panorama of cultural and social life in the diverse cities of Salonica, Istanbul and Izmir in the late Ottoman era.

Noel Malcolm on the Ottoman Empire and Islam in Western political thought

Tue, 11 May 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Sir Noel Malcolm, senior research fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford, on “Useful Enemies: Islam and the Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought 1450-1750” (Oxford University Press).

Evren Savcı on Turkey's LGBT movement, from flourishing to crackdown

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Evren Savcı, author of "Queer in Translation: Sexual Politics Under Neoliberal Islam" (Duke University Press), on shifting discourse around LGBT rights in Turkey and the government's mounting rhetoric against activists.

Ahmet Erdi Öztürk on Turkey's cultural, political and religious footprint in the Balkans

Tue, 13 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Ahmet Erdi Öztürk on “Religion, Identity and Power: Turkey and the Balkans in the 21st Century" (Edinburgh University Press). Based on extensive fieldwork, the book examines how Turkey's religious nationalist transformation under Erdoğan is reflected in its expanding footprint in the Balkans.

Jenny White on the deep scars of political violence in Turkey's 1970s

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Jenny White, professor at Stockholm University's Institute for Turkish Studies, on "Turkish Kaleidoscope: Fractured Lives in a Time of Violence" (Princeton University Press). The graphic novel, illustrated by Ergün Gündüz, tells the story of young protagonists caught up in the social turbulence leading to Turkey's 1980 coup.

Jeremy Seal on Adnan Menderes and the long shadow of Turkey's 1960 coup

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0300

Jeremy Seal on “A Coup in Turkey: A Tale of Democracy, Despotism and Vengeance in a Divided Land” (Penguin). The book explores the legacy of Adnan Menderes, who became the Republic of Turkey's first democratically elected prime minister in 1950 before being overthrown in a military coup in May 1960.

Taner Doğan on ideology and charisma in Erdoğan's communication strategy

Tue, 02 Mar 2021 01:00:00 +0300

Taner Doğan on “Communication Strategies in Turkey: Erdogan, the AKP and Political Messaging” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury).

Murat Erdoğan on Syrian migrants' future in Turkey

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 01:00:00 +0300

Murat Erdoğan, director of the Turkish German University's Migration and Integration Research Centre, on the future of Syrians in Turkey. Erdoğan oversees “Syrians Barometer”, an annual UNHCR-supported research project tracking the views of Syrians in Turkey and Turkish citizens' views of Syrians.

Become a Turkey Book Talk member to support the podcast and get English/Turkish transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, a 30% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman history books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Chiara Maritato on women in Turkey's state religious agency

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 01:00:00 +0300

Chiara Maritato on "Women, Religion and the State in Contemporary Turkey" (Cambridge University Press), examining the causes and effects of women's expanded role in Turkey's state religious agency over the past 20 years.

Become a Turkey Book Talk member to support the podcast and get English/Turkish transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, a 30% discount on all books in IB Tauris' Turkey/Ottoman history series, exclusive access to more links, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Mostafa Minawi on the Ottoman Empire's scramble for Africa

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 01:00:00 +0300

Mostafa Minawi on "The Ottoman Scramble for Africa: Empire and Diplomacy in the Sahara and the Hijaz" (Stanford University Press), examining the Ottoman Empire's bid to expand its footprint in Africa and Arabia in the late-19th century age of imperialism.

Become a Turkey Book Talk member to support the podcast and get English/Turkish transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, exclusive access to more links, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Ömer Taşpınar on what the West gets wrong about the Middle East and Turkey

Tue, 05 Jan 2021 01:00:00 +0300

Omer Taşpınar, professor at the US National War College and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, on “What the West is Getting Wrong about the Middle East: Why Islam is Not the Problem” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury).

Gülay Türkmen on Turks, Kurds and the limits of religious unity

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 01:00:00 +0300

Gülay Türkmen on "Under the Banner of Islam: Turks, Kurds and the Limits of Religious Unity" (Oxford University Press). The book addresses how Islam has been used as a tool of both unity and resistance by various sides in Turkey's Kurdish question.

Become a Turkey Book Talk member to support the podcast and get English/Turkish transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, a 35% discount on over 100 books in IB Tauris' Turkey/Ottoman history series, exclusive access to more links, and over 200 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.

Mustafa Menshawy on the Muslim Brotherhood in exile in Turkey

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 01:00:00 +0300

Mustafa Menshawy, author of “Leaving the Muslim Brotherhood: Self, Society and the State” (Palgrave), on how the migration of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood leaders and members from Egypt to Turkey in recent years has changed the group.

Elizabeth Rodini on the lives of Bellini's portrait of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II

Tue, 24 Nov 2020 01:00:00 +0300

Elizabeth Rodini on "Gentile Bellini's Portrait of Sultan Mehmed II: Lives and Afterlives of an Iconic Image" (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury). The book explores how the Venetian painter came to the Ottoman court in 1479, as well as his portrait's many intriguing afterlives.

Jan-Markus Vomel on the past and future of political Islam in Turkey

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 01:00:00 +0300

Jan-Markus Vömel, doctoral candidate at the University of Konstanz, on the origins and development of political Islam in Turkey from the 1950s to 2000, as well as its role today.

Louis Fishman on Jews and Palestinians in the late Ottoman era

Tue, 27 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0300

Louis Fishman, associate professor at Brooklyn College at the City University of New York, on “Jews and Palestinians in the Late Ottoman Era, 1908-1914: Claiming the Homeland” (Edinburgh University Press).

Umut Azak on Hagia Sophia and the future of Turkey's religious nationalist status quo

Tue, 13 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0300

Umut Azak of Istanbul's Okan University on Hagia Sophia's conversion from museum to mosque, the history of calls on Turkey's religious right to take the step, and the future of the country's religious nationalist status quo under President Erdoğan.

Ahmet Kuru on Islam, authoritarianism and underdevelopment

Tue, 29 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0300

Ahmet Kuru on "Islam, Authoritarianism and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison" (Cambridge University Press).

Zeynep Çelik on archaeology and heritage in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 05:47:05 +0300

Zeynep Çelik, professor of architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, on the origins of archaeology in the Ottoman Empire, the response to the European pursuit of antiquities, and questions of heritage in contemporary Turkey.

Alan Mikhail on Selim I, the Ottoman Empire and the making of the modern world

Tue, 01 Sep 2020 10:26:03 +0300

Alan Mikhail, professor of history at Yale University, on "God's Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire and the Making of the Modern World" (WW Norton). The book is a continent-spanning account of the life and times of Selim I, who ruled from 1512 to 1520 and whose reign saw seismic changes in Ottoman and world history.

Sinem Adar on the militarisation of Turkey's foreign policy

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0300

Sinem Adar, associate in the Centre for Applied Turkey Studies at the SWP think tank in Berlin, on the hardening of Turkey's foreign policy in the Middle East, the East Mediterranean and Europe, as well as the Turkish government's soft power investments.

Richard Antaramian on Ottoman modernisation and the Armenian community

Tue, 04 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0300

Richard Antaramian, assistant professor of history at the University of Southern California, on “Brokers of Faith, Brokers of Empire: Armenians and the Politics of Reform in the Ottoman Empire” (Stanford University Press), examining the Armenian community's experiences with the "Tanzimat" reforms of the mid-19th century.

Berk Esen on the political economy behind Turkey's democratic distress

Tue, 21 Jul 2020 00:36:42 +0300

Berk Esen, assistant professor of international relations at Bilkent University, on his paper “Why did Turkish democracy collapse? A political economy account of the AKP's authoritarianism”, co-authored with Şebnem Gümüşçü for the Party Politics journal.

Magdalena Zaborowska on James Baldwin's Turkish decade

Tue, 07 Jul 2020 00:10:23 +0300

Magdalena Zaborowska, professor of literature at the University of Michigan, on "James Baldwin's Turkish Decade: Erotics of Exile" (Duke University Press). The book looks at the great African American author's extensive periods living and working in Istanbul from 1961 to 1971.

Serhun Al on the historical origins of Turkey's Kurdish question

Tue, 23 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0300

Serhun Al, co-editor of “Comparative Kurdish Politics in the Middle East” (Palgrave Macmillan) and author of “Patterns of Nationhood and Saving the State in Turkey” (Routledge), on the historical origins of Turkey's Kurdish issue and the latest crackdown on the Kurdish movement.

Oya Dursun-Özkanca on Turkey's foreign policy after Covid-19

Tue, 09 Jun 2020 00:07:34 +0300

Oya Dursun-Özkanca, professor of political science at Elizabethtown College, on her book “Turkey-West Relations: The Politics of Intra-Alliance Opposition” (Cambridge University Press) and Ankara's grand ambitions for the post-coronavirus world.

Ünver Rüstem on the Baroque in Istanbul and Ottoman rise and decline

Tue, 26 May 2020 00:37:35 +0300

Ünver Rüstem on "Ottoman Baroque: The Architectural Refashioning of Eighteenth-Century Istanbul" (Princeton University Press). The book examines the adoption of Baroque and rococo styles in Istanbul mosques between 1740 and 1800, looking at how this fits into popular ideas of Ottoman decline and Western influence.

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Michael Wuthrich on main opposition mayors and populism in Turkey

Tue, 12 May 2020 00:12:42 +0300

Michael Wuthrich of the University of Kansas on "The Pushback Against Populism: Running on 'Radical Love' in Turkey", co-authored with Melvyn Ingleby for the Journal of Democracy. The paper examines the main opposition's local election campaign in 2019, when it applied sophisticated tactics to counter the ruling party's populism.

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Şeyda Çetin and Ebru Esra Satıcı on Ukrainian artist Alexis Gritchenko's Istanbul years, 1919-21

Tue, 28 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0300

Şeyda Çetin and Ebru Esra Satıcı discuss the Meşher gallery's exhibition on Ukrainian painter Alexis Gritchenko's Istanbul years from 1919 to 1921. Gritchenko produced over 600 works in the occupied city, to which thousands of White Russians fled after the First World War and the Russian Revolution.

Ayfer Karakaya-Stump on Alevis in today's Turkey and in 15th century Anatolia

Tue, 14 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0300

Ayfer Karakaya-Stump, associate professor of history at The College of William and Mary, on “The Kizilbash Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia: Sufism, Politics and Community” (Edinburgh University Press). The book traces the origins of today's Alevis as a unified religious group back to the 15th and 16th centuries.

Ryan Gingeras on the paradoxes of Turkey in the age of Atatürk

Tue, 31 Mar 2020 07:37:10 +0300

Ryan Gingeras on “Eternal Dawn: Turkey in the Age of Atatürk” (Oxford University Press) on the late Ottoman and early republican period, examining the paradoxes behind the rise and consecration of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk from the First World War, through the Turkish war of independence, and to his death in 1938.

Omar Kadkoy on Syrian refugees, the EU deal and migrants in Turkey

Tue, 17 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0300

Omar Kadkoy, policy analyst at the TEPAV think tank, on the over 3.5 million Syrian migrants and refugees in Turkey, the Ankara-EU migrant deal, shifting public opinion, and the legal future of Syrians in the country.

Onur İşçi on Turkey-Russia ties during the Second World War and today

Tue, 03 Mar 2020 01:00:00 +0300

Onur İşçi on “Turkey and the Soviet Union during World War II” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury). The book counter-intuitively argues that the breakdown in Turkey-Soviet relations in the Second World War and at the start of the Cold War was an anomaly in a 20th century in which Turkey and Russia in fact cooperated widely.

Ayse Zarakol on stigma and status anxiety in Turkey’s ties to the West

Tue, 18 Feb 2020 01:00:00 +0300

Ayşe Zarakol on “After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West” (Cambridge University Press). The book examines how a sense of “stigma” has dogged the way modern Turkey engages with the Western-led international order, as well as comparable cases of Japan and Russia.

Erkan Saka on social media, trolling and fake news in Turkey

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 01:00:00 +0300

Erkan Saka on “Social Media and Politics in Turkey: A Journey Through Citizen Journalism, Political Trolling and Fake News” (Lexington). The book looks at the transformation of social media use in Turkey over the years, as well as the government crackdown on social media platforms and users.

Ayhan Kaya on migration from Turkey to Europe, past and present

Tue, 21 Jan 2020 01:00:00 +0300

Ayhan Kaya of Istanbul Bilgi University on “Turkish Origin Migrants and Their Descendants” (Palgrave Macmillan). The book examines migration from Turkey to Europe since the 1960s, arguing that home and host countries have increasingly defined migrants within rigid, religiously-defined boundaries, with ambivalent results.

Mike Giglio on reporting the rise and fall of ISIS from Turkey, Syria and Iraq

Tue, 07 Jan 2020 01:00:00 +0300

Mike Giglio, staff writer at The Atlantic, on "Shatter the Nations: ISIS and the War for the Caliphate" (Public Affairs). The book describes Giglio's years reporting on the rise and fall of ISIS from Turkey, Syria and Iraq, including time embedded on the front line with Iraqi special forces and the Syrian Kurdish YPG.

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Bilge Yabancı on youth groups cultivating Turkey's religious nationalism

Tue, 17 Dec 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Bilge Yabancı on her paper “Work for the Nation, Obey the State, Praise the Ummah: Turkey’s Government-oriented Youth Organizations in Cultivating a New Nation”. The paper explores the relationship between the ruling AKP and youth groups that share its goal of shepherding Turkey down a religious, nationalist, conservative course.

Caner Yelbaşı on the Circassians in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire

Tue, 03 Dec 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Caner Yelbaşı on “The Circassians in Turkey: War, Violence and Nationalism from the Ottomans to Atatürk” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury). The book describes the course of Circassians in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey after they were driven from their north Caucasus homeland by the Russian Empire in the 19th century.

Jonathan Rugman on Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the killing of Jamal Khashoggi

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Jonathan Rugman, foreign correspondent at Channel 4 News, on “The Killing in the Consulate: Investigating the Life and Death of Jamal Khashoggi” (Simon & Schuster). The book examines the gruesome killing of Saudi journalist Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia's Istanbul Consulate, as well as Khashoggi's complex professional and personal life.

Zeynep Şentek on industry and politics in environmental 'disaster zone' Dilovası

Tue, 05 Nov 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Zeynep Şentek on the environment, public health and politics in Dilovası, a heavily polluted industrial district near Istanbul. Şentek is among the reporters of a recent Black Sea.EU article on a "public health disaster zone" where dangerous chemicals are belched into the air, cancer rates are reportedly above average, and locals suffer from severe respiratory conditions.

Soner Çağaptay on Syria and Erdoğan's Middle East quandary

Tue, 22 Oct 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Soner Çağaptay of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on how Turkey's military incursion into northeast Syria fits into President Erdoğan's broader policies in the Middle East. Çağaptay is author most recently of “Erdogan's Empire: Turkey and the Politics of the Middle East” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury).

Holly Shissler on late Ottoman man of letters Ahmet Mithat Efendi

Tue, 08 Oct 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Holly Shissler, associate professor of Ottoman and Modern Turkish History at the University of Chicago, on the life and work of Ahmet Mithat Efendi (1844-1912). The publisher of major newspaper Tercuman-i Hakikat, Ahmet Mithat also wrote many fictional works including Felatun Bey and Rakim Efendi, which appeared in English in 2016.

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Deniz Çifçi on the fissures within Kurdish politics in Turkey

Tue, 24 Sep 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Deniz Çifçi on “The Kurds and the Politics of Turkey: Agency, Territory and Religion” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury). Based on extensive on-the-ground research, the book describes the diversity of interest and opinion among Kurds in Turkey. While the Kurds are often seen as a homogeneous group with unified demands, Çifçi paints a more nuanced picture.

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Nur Deriş on the epic life and times of Turkish journalist Sabiha Sertel

Tue, 10 Sep 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Nur Deriş on the life of Sabiha Sertel (1895-1968). Deriş is co-editor of “The Struggle for Modern Turkey: Justice, Activism and a Revolutionary Female Journalist” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury), the first appearance in English of Sertel's autobiography. The book is a fascinating window into an era covering the war of independence and the single-party period until 1950.

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Emre Erşen on Turkey's pivot to Eurasia

Tue, 27 Aug 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Emre Erşen, associate professor of international relations at Marmara University and co-editor of “Turkey's Pivot to Eurasia: Geopolitics and Foreign Policy in a Changing World Order” (Routledge), discusses the past, present and future of Ankara's relations with Russia and China.

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Hannah Lucinda Smith on the past, present and future of Erdogan's Turkey

Tue, 13 Aug 2019 19:11:14 +0300

Hannah Lucinda Smith on her new book “Erdoğan Rising: The Battle for the Soul of Turkey” (William Collins). Smith has been Turkey correspondent for The Times of London since 2013 and her book is a part-biography of President Erdoğan, part-journalistic account of contemporary Turkish history.

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Mehmet Fatih Uslu on the pleasures and perils of translating Armenian to Turkish

Tue, 30 Jul 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Mehmet Fatih Uslu of Istanbul Şehir University on the pleasures and challenges of translating from Armenian into Turkish. Uslu has translated a number of significant texts, including by the great early 20th century Istanbul Armenian feminist Zabel Yesayan and the 19th century playwright Hagop Baronyan.

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Yağmur Karakaya on Ottoman nostalgia and populism in Turkey

Tue, 16 Jul 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Yağmur Karakaya on the rise of Ottoman nostalgia in contemporary Turkish politics and popular culture. Karakaya is the author of "The Conquest of Hearts: The central role of Ottoman nostalgia within contemporary Turkish populism", published in the American Journal of Cultural Sociology.

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Haris Rigas on the Istanbul of 19th century Greek scholar Skarlatos Byzantios

Tue, 02 Jul 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Haris Theodorelis-Rigas on Skarlatos Byzantios' "Constantinople" (Istos), a monumental social and historical description of Istanbul written in the mid-19th century. Haris is the translator of the first volume and one of the founders of Istos, a publishing house focusing on the Greek Orthodox heritage of Istanbul and Anatolia.

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Elif Mahir Metinsoy on Ottoman women during World War I

Tue, 18 Jun 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Elif Mahir Metinsoy on her book “Ottoman Women During World War I: Everyday Experiences, Politics and Conflict” (Cambridge University Press). The book describes the lives of Muslim women in the Ottoman Empire during the Great War, moving beyond a focus on the educated urban population, focusing instead on ordinary masses across Anatolia.

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Selim Deringil on the Ottoman twilight in the Arab lands

Tue, 04 Jun 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Selim Deringil, professor of history at the Lebanese American University, on “The Ottoman Twilight in the Arab Lands: Turkish Memoirs and Testimonies of the Great War” (Academic Studies Press). The book includes translations and annotations of memoirs by five Ottomans stationed in Syria and the Arab Peninsula during World War One.

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Toygar Sinan Baykan on populism and organisation in the AKP

Tue, 21 May 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Toygar Sinan Baykan of Kırklareli University on "The Justice and Development Party: Populism, Personalism, Organization" (Cambridge University Press). The book is based on interviews with over 50 members at various levels of Turkey's ruling AKP, giving an intimate glimpse of its internal dynamics and how it benefits from various socio-cultural divides.

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Reuben Silverman on explorations in Turkey’s 'ever-present past'

Tue, 07 May 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Reuben Silverman, author of “Turkey’s Ever Present Past: Stories from Republican Turkish History” and “Politics in Turkey: Parties, Politicians and the Struggle for Power” (Libra Books), talks about his research on contemporary Turkish history.

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Patrick Keddie on football and the story of modern Turkey

Tue, 23 Apr 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Patrick Keddie on “The Passion: Football and the Story of Modern Turkey” (IB Taurus/Bloomsbury), a sweeping account of the cultural, social, political and economic significance of football in contemporary Turkey.

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Şevket Pamuk on the economic history of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey since 1820

Tue, 09 Apr 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Şevket Pamuk, Professor of Economics at Istanbul’s Boğaziçi University, on “Uneven Centuries: Economic Development of Turkey Since 1820” (Princeton University Press).

Ceren Lord on religious politics in Turkey

Tue, 26 Mar 2019 01:30:00 +0300

Ceren Lord, Research Fellow at Oxford University’s School of Global and Area Studies, on “Religious Politics in Turkey: From the Birth of the Republic to the AKP” (Cambridge University Press). The book argues against the popular binary understanding of modern Turkish history, which pits a monolithic secular state against an authentic religious society.

Doğuş Şimşek and Yusuf Sayman on African migrants in Istanbul

Tue, 12 Mar 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Doğus Şimşek of Koç University and photographer Yusuf Sayman on “Çabuk Çabuk: Africans in Istanbul” (Pencere Yayınları). The book features text by Şimşek and over 100 photos by Sayman, giving a glimpse into the lives of migrants from a range of African countries struggling to get by in Istanbul.

Selda Tuncer on women and public space in Ankara, 1950 to 1980

Tue, 26 Feb 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Selda Tuncer, assistant professor at Yüzüncü Yıl University, on “Women and Public Space in Turkey: Gender, Modernity and the Urban Experience” (IB Tauris). The book is based on interviews with dozens of women who lived in the Turkish capital Ankara between 1950 and 1980.

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Selim Koru on Turkey, Russia and the power of political resentment

Tue, 12 Feb 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Selim Koru on his paper: “The Resiliency of Turkey-Russia Relations.” Despite being historic rivals and at odds on many issues, Koru argues that Ankara-Moscow ties are becoming increasingly warm due to a shared underlying worldview, spurred by resentment of the West.

Maureen Freely on the life and work of Sait Faik Abasiyanik

Tue, 29 Jan 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Maureen Freely on the enduring appeal of Sait Faik Abasiyanik (1906-1954), perhaps Turkey’s greatest short story writer. Freely co-translated a selection of Sait Faik’s stories, published in English as “A Useless Man” (Archipelago).

Caroline Eden on a culinary journey along the Black Sea coast

Tue, 15 Jan 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Caroline Eden on “Black Sea: Dispatches and Recipes – Through Darkness and Light” (Quadrille), a richly illustrated part-cookbook, part-travelogue describing places, people and recipes from the Black Sea coasts of Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria to Istanbul, Trabzon and Rize in Turkey.

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Yigit Akin on the Ottoman home front during World War One

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 01:00:00 +0300

Yigit Akin on “When the War Came Home: The Ottomans’ Great War and the Devastation of an Empire” (Stanford University Press), a richly researched study on the consequences of the First World War on everyday social life across Ottoman territories as the empire collapsed.

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Lora Sarı on the life, photography and writing of Ara Guler

Tue, 11 Dec 2018 01:00:00 +0300

Lora Sarı on the life, photography and writing of the late Ara Güler, following the publication of "We Will Live After Babylon" (Aras). The book is a collection of Güler's writings, interspersed with his classic photographs.

Alev Scott on 'Ottoman Odyssey: Travels Through a Lost Empire'

Tue, 27 Nov 2018 01:00:00 +0300

Alev Scott on "Ottoman Odyssey: Travels Through a Lost Empire" (Riverrun), her travelogue exploring the past and present of Turkey and the former territories of the Ottoman Empire.

Avedis Hadjian on the 'hidden Armenians' of Anatolia

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 17:15:21 +0300

Avedis Hadjian on his book "Secret Nation: The Hidden Armenians of Turkey" (IB Tauris).

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Begum Adalet on the Cold War origins of Turkey-US ties

Tue, 30 Oct 2018 01:00:00 +0300

Begüm Adalet on "Hotels and Highways: The Construction of Modernization Theory in Cold War Turkey" (Stanford University Press).

Doğu Eroğlu on investigating ISIS networks in Turkey

Tue, 16 Oct 2018 01:00:00 +0300

Doğu Eroğlu on "ISIS Networks: Radicalisation, Organisation, Logistics in Turkey” (İletişim), his forensic account of jihadi operations in Turkey and grassroots radicalisation, based on years of on-the-ground reporting.

Sinan Yıldırmaz on urban migration and the peasantry in Turkish politics

Tue, 02 Oct 2018 01:00:00 +0300

Sinan Yıldırmaz of Istanbul University on "Politics and the Peasantry in Post-War Turkey" (IB Tauris), examining the transition to a multi-party system after the Second World War and the importance of urban migration in shaping politics up to today.

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Nazlı Alimen on faith, headscarves and conservative fashion in Turkey

Tue, 18 Sep 2018 01:00:00 +0300

Nazlı Alimen on her book "Faith and Fashion in Turkey: Consumption, Politics and Islamic Identity" (IB Tauris).

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Ahmet Erdi Öztürk on the rising profile of Turkey's religious affairs directorate

Tue, 04 Sep 2018 01:00:00 +0300

Ahmet Erdi Öztürk of Strasbourg University on the past, present and future of the Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet). Öztürk is author of the paper “Turkey’s Diyanet under AKP rule: From protector to imposer of state ideology?” and co-author of “The Diyanet as a Turkish foreign policy tool.”

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Halil Karaveli on a history of authoritarianism in modern Turkey

Tue, 21 Aug 2018 01:00:00 +0300

Halil Karaveli on “Why Turkey is Authoritarian: From Atatürk to Erdoğan” (Pluto Press). Against the idea that the secularism-Islam divide is the fundamental driver of Turkey’s modern history, Karaveli argues that protecting dominant class interests lies behind authoritarianism in its civilian and military guises.

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Dimitar Bechev on Turkey-Russia relations, past and present

Tue, 07 Aug 2018 01:00:00 +0300

Dimitar Bechev of the Atlantic Council on the past and present of Turkey-Russia relations, which he describes as "rich in history, ambivalent and rich in nuance, blending fierce competition with cooperation."

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Amy Spangler on the writing of Sevgi Soysal and running a literary agency in Istanbul

Tue, 24 Jul 2018 01:30:00 +0300

Amy Spangler on the life and work of Sevgi Soysal, whose classic 1973 novel "Noontime in Yenişehir" she translated into English. She also discusses co-founding the literary agency AnatoliaLit and her work on "Seher," a collection of stories penned in jail by former HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş.

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Michael Provence on the last Ottoman generation and the making of the Middle East

Tue, 10 Jul 2018 06:39:30 +0300

Michael Provence of UC San Diego on "The Last Ottoman Generation and the Making of the Modern Middle East" (Cambridge University Press). The book examines both continuities and ruptures in the years during and after the First World War, when the fall of the Ottoman Empire led to seismic shocks across the Middle East.

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Jonathan Varjabedian on family letters from Anatolia to America, 1912 to 1919

Tue, 26 Jun 2018 01:00:00 +0300

Jonathan Varjabedian on “My Dear Son Garabed: Kojaian Family Letters from Efkere/Kayseri to America (1912-1919)” (Histor Press), a remarkable collection of letters sent from the Anatolian village of Efkere between 1912 and 1919. They were sent to Garabed Kojaian and his father Harutian, among the many Ottoman Armenians migrating to America in the early 20th century.

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Cengiz Erişen on emotions and election campaigns in Turkey

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 01:00:00 +0300

Cengiz Erişen of Istanbul's Yeditepe University on "Political Behavior and the Emotional Citizen: Participation and Reaction in Turkey" (Palgrave Macmillan), focusing on the months between the June 2015 and November 2015 elections as well as the current campaign for the snap presidential and parliamentary elections.

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Erin Banco on the plundering of Iraqi Kurdistan's oil wealth

Tue, 29 May 2018 02:00:00 +0300

Erin Banco on "Pipe Dreams: The Plundering of Iraq's Oil Wealth" (Columbia Global Reports), uncovering squalid deals, unscrupulous foreign oil companies, and rampant corruption in the Kurdistan Regional Government since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It also touches on Turkey's role in fostering Erbil's independence from Baghdad through oil deals.

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John McManus on football culture and society in Turkey

Tue, 15 May 2018 01:00:00 +0300

John McManus, fellow at the British Institute at Ankara, on "Welcome to Hell? In Search of the Real Turkish Football" (W&N), a colourful exploration of what the beautiful game can tell us about a football-mad society and Turkey’s modern history.

Volkan Yılmaz on the politics of healthcare and welfare in Turkey

Tue, 01 May 2018 08:39:26 +0300

Volkan Yılmaz, assistant professor of social policy at Istanbul’s Boğaziçi University, on “The Politics of Healthcare Reform in Turkey” (Palgrave Macmillan).

The book examines reforms in the country’s healthcare system under the AKP since 2003: What changed? What improved? What got worse? Who gained? Who lost?

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş on Turkey and Europe beyond hypocrisy

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 01:00:00 +0300

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, journalist and fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, on the ECFR's recent report: "The Discreet Charm of Hypocrisy: An EU-Turkey Power Audit."

Based on interviews with top officials on all sides, the report examines bitter relations between Brussels and Ankara. It recommends finding a new model beyond the hypocritical and stalled accession process.

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Diana Darke on Abu Chaker and the modern history of Syria

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 01:00:00 +0300

Diana Darke on “The Merchant of Syria: A History of Survival” (Hurst). The book traces the life of Abu Chaker, a textile merchant from Homs who lived from 1921 to 2013, in parallel with the story of the modern history of Syria - examining the social, cultural and political context that shaped him. It also touches on the emergence of the ongoing war, which Darke herself witnessed as she was living in a historical courtyard house in Damascus’ old town until a few years ago.

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Max Hoffman on Turkey's latest nationalist wave

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 01:00:00 +0300

Max Hoffman of the Center for American Progress on the major recent study “Is Turkey Experiencing a New Nationalism?” based on focus groups and polling with the Metropoll research company.

The report finds that Turkey remains a deeply nationalist, conservative country, where the national mood is prickly, defensive and conspiratorial. But it also contains some perhaps surprising details about attitudes to President Erdoğan, levels of religiosity in young people, and the political opinions of Turkish women.

Become a Turkey Book Talk member to support the podcast, getting full transcripts (in English and Turkish) of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire Turkey Book Talk archive (in English), and access to an exclusive 30% discount on over 200 Turkey/Ottoman history titles published by IB Tauris.

Ceren Baysan on voters, parties and polarization in Turkey

Tue, 06 Mar 2018 02:00:00 +0300

Ceren Baysan of UC Berkeley on her paper "Can More Information Lead to More Voter Polarization? Experimental Evidence from Turkey." The study was based on voter surveys in the months before the April 2017 referendum on granting President Erdoğan more powers and also measured Turkish parties' own polling operations.

Become a Turkey Book Talk member to support the podcast, getting full transcripts (in English and Turkish) of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire Turkey Book Talk archive (in English), and access to an exclusive 30% discount on over 200 Turkey/Ottoman history titles published by IB Tauris.

Mehmet Kentel on the world of Ottoman caricaturist Yusuf Franko

Tue, 20 Feb 2018 00:59:25 +0300

Mehmet Kentel on the life and work of Yusuf Franko, an obscure Ottoman bureaucrat who lived a remarkable double life as a caricaturist depicting Istanbul's cosmopolitan late 19th century high society. Kentel is a PhD Candidate in Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Washington, and was adviser to the exhibition “The Characters of Yusuf Franko: An Ottoman Bureaucrat’s Caricatures” at the Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations.

Become a Turkey Book Talk member to support the podcast, getting full transcripts (in English and Turkish) of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire Turkey Book Talk archive (in English), and access to an exclusive 30% discount on over 200 Turkey/Ottoman history titles published by IB Tauris.

Karabekir Akkoyunlu on the 'exit from democracy' in Turkey and beyond

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 01:25:35 +0300

Karabekir Akkoyunlu, research associate at the University of Graz, on "Exit from Democracy: Illiberal Governance in Turkey and Beyond" (Routledge), a collection of 10 essays he co-edited with Professor Kerem Öktem.

Become a Turkey Book Talk member to help develop the podcast and get full transcripts (in English and Turkish) of every interview when it is published, transcripts of the entire Turkey Book Talk archive (in English), and access to an exclusive 30% discount on over 200 Turkey/Ottoman history titles published by IB Tauris.

Edhem Eldem on Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II between fantasy and reality

Fri, 19 Jan 2018 00:54:39 +0300

Professor Edhem Eldem on "A Transnational History of the Attempt on Abdülhamid II" (Palgrave Macmillan), co-edited with Houssine Alloul and Henk de Smaele. The book explores a deadly assassination attempt targeting the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul in 1905, and appears at a time when Abdülhamid II is the subject of a growing popular obsession among religious conservatives in Turkey.

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Cathy Otten on Yezidi women and Iraq after the Islamic State

Fri, 05 Jan 2018 02:00:00 +0300

Arbil-based journalist Cathy Otten discusses "With Ash on their Faces: Yezidi Women and the Islamic State" (OR Books), a deeply reported account of the suffering of the Yezidi religious minority over the border in Iraq.

Support Turkey Book Talk by making a donation via Patreon. Many thanks to current supporters Celia Jocelyn Kerslake, Michelle Zimmer, Jan-Markus Vömel, Steve Bryant, Aaron Ataman, Max Hoffman, Andrew MacDowall, Paul Levin, Ayla Jean Yackley and Tan Tunalı.

Ezgi Başaran on ‘frontline Turkey,’ Gülenists and the Kurdish peace process

Fri, 22 Dec 2017 01:05:00 +0300

Journalist Ezgi Başaran on "Frontline Turkey: The Conflict at the Heart of the Middle East" (IB Tauris), a 200-page account of the collapse of the Kurdish peace process, the rise and fall of the Gülen movement, and deepening authoritarianism.