Turkey Book Talk

Salim Cevik, research associate at the Clingendael Institute, on his paper “Turkey's Kurdish process and authoritarian consolidation: Disarmament without settlement”. The piece argues that Ankara's dialogue process aimed at dissolving the PKK will ultimately result in greater authoritarianisation, not democratisation. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Kenan Orhan on “The Renovation” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The Booker Prize longlisted novel tells the story of a woman, recently arrived in Italy, who discovers that her bathroom has been re-modelled into a cell in Istanbul's Silivri Prison. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Nefise Kahraman on Translation Attached, which brings lesser known Ottoman and Turkish literary gems to an English-reading audience. Translation Attached just published its seventh book, a volume of 25 short stories by the late author and diplomat Memduh Sevket Esendal (1883-1952).  Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Dimitar Bechev on “The Scramble for Europe: Russia, China, and Turkey Challenging Regional Order” (Oxford University Press). The book questions whether Ankara can be placed alongside Moscow and Beijing as a direct challenge to the EU, with a fundamentally different view on the challenges of an increasingly unstable world.  Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Marc Sinan Winrow on “Turkey and the Liberal International Order: Hegemony, Contestation and the Politics of Articulation Since 1919” (Agenda Publishing, Edinburgh University Press). Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Benjamin Fortna, professor of history at the University of Arizona, on “The Shortest History of Turkey: From the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic” (Old Street Publishing). Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Işılay Gürsu on “Public Dialogues in Archaeology: New Methodologies from Turkey” (Bloomsbury Academic). The book explores the Turkish public's perception and understanding of the country's rich archaeological heritage. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Onur İnal on “Gateway to the Mediterranean: An Environmental History of Late Ottoman Izmir” (Cambridge University Press). The book shows how the cosmopolitan coastal city of Izmir flourished in the 19th century to become a major link between the Ottoman Empire, Europe and the rest of the world. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Sinem Adar, head of the Centre for Applied Turkey Studies at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, on Turkey's international profile and domestic political trajectory after its recent hosting of the NATO summit in Ankara. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Hannah Lucinda Smith on “Hinterlands: Journeys through Europe’s Unfinished Frontiers” (Profile Books). The book shows how Eastern Europe, the East Mediterranean and the Caucasus are becoming geopolitical hotspots as revisionist powers like Russia and Turkey look to secure a greater share of the pie. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Doruk Erhan on the crackdown on Turkey's main opposition party. Judicial operations on the CHP have led pundits to warn the country is shifting to a post-democratic system of arbitrary rule, but in recent articles for the Verfassungsblog, Erhan makes a relatively optimistic case for the opposition's path forward. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Istanbul-based journalist Jennifer Hattam on her work updating the Lonely Planet guide to Turkey. The conversation touches on the immense amount of work and miles that go into updating the guide, as well as how Turkey has changed since she first did the job. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Brett Wilson on his article "Sufi Leaders in the early Turkish Republic: Profession, Privilege, and Persecution (1925-1950)". The piece studies the impact of the 1925 outlawing of Islamic religious orders, challenging the traditional idea of harsh secularist persecution. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Suzy Hansen on “From Life Itself: Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdoğan” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The book focuses on Istanbul's Karagumruk to explore the everyday impact of geopolitical upheaval, economic turbulence and the arrival of Syrian migrants in Turkey. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Faisal Devji on “Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam” (Yale University Press). The book argues that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Islam in countries including Turkey transformed into a modern ideological system like capitalism or communism, but this process has now reached its end. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Ryan Gingeras, author of “Mafia: A Global History” (Simon & Schuster) and “Heroin, Organized Crime, and the Making of Modern Turkey” (Oxford University Press), on the influence of criminal organisations in Turkey's political and economic life over the decades. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

Mustafa Aksakal, associate professor of history at Georgetown University, on “The War that Made the Middle East: World War I and the End of the Ottoman Empire” (Princeton 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.

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, 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) 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.

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. 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.