Michelle Lynn Kahn on Turkish migration to Germany
March 3, 2026
Turkey Book Talk #265 – Michelle Lynn Kahn, associate professor of modern European history at the University of Richmond, on “Foreign in Two Homelands: Racism, Return Migration and Turkish-German History” (Cambridge University Press).
Migration from Turkey largely started with West Germany’s “guest worker” scheme, introduced in 1961. Since the 1970s, Turks have been Germany’s largest ethnic minority and today there are around 3 million people with Turkish heritage in the country.
Using sources in both countries and both languages, as well as in-depth conversations with former guest workers and their children, ”Foreign in Two Homelands” gives a kaleidoscopic overview of experiences on both sides. Uniquely, it also focuses on the experiences of migrants to Germany who returned to Turkey, many of whom ended up feeling socially alienated in both environments.
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Turkey Book Talk #264 – 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)
The book examines the emergence of sports culture in late Ottoman Istanbul and its implications for developing ideas of modernisation, imperial identity, religious identity, communal identity and gender norms. It also shows how Muslims, Christians and Jews created an athletics culture in schools, clubs and publications that in some ways transcended ethnoreligious divisions but in other ways reinforced them.
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Please support Turkey Book Talk as a member on either Substack or Patreon. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, access to transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to the subject of every episode.
Turkey Book Talk #263 – Berin Gür, professor of architecture at Ankara’s TED University, on “The Conquest of Istanbul and the Manipulation of Architecture: The Islamist-Nationalist Rhetoric of Conquest and Melancholy” (Routledge)
The book explores how the 1453 Ottoman conquest of Istanbul is remembered in Turkey’s mainstream official narrative and how architecture contributes to this. It dives deep into the weaponisation of historical memory in the country today, while also considering how Greeks remember the same historical event.
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Please support Turkey Book Talk as a member on either Substack or Patreon. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, access to transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to the subject of every episode.
Adnan Khan on the human toll of Turkey’s importing of Europe’s waste
January 20, 2026
Turkey Book Talk #262 – Journalist Adnan Khan on the spectacular growth of Turkey’s plastic waste imports and the role of migrant labour in the sector.
Adnan is the author of two major investigations for the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP): “A Deadly Trade – Refugee Labor in Turkey and Europe’s Plastic Waste” and “Dirty Work – The Hidden Machinery and Human Toll of Europe’s Broken Recycling Trade”.
The articles paint a grim portrait of how a confluence of circumstances, including the EU-Turkey migration deal and China’s banning of plastic waste imports, has helped the industry to flourish in Turkey – with deadly human consequences.
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Please support Turkey Book Talk as a member on either Substack or Patreon. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, access to transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to the subject of every episode.
Turkey Book Talk #261 – Burcu Karahan of Stanford University on her translation of “One Thousand and One Kisses: The Most Joyous and Flirtatious Stories” (Translation Attached).
The collection brings together 65 stories blending risque humour and bold eroticism, first published anonymously in weekly instalments in 1923-24. The stories are a fascinating time capsule of a vanished age, but much remains unknown about who was behind them and the circumstances of their publication.
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Please support Turkey Book Talk as a member on either Substack or Patreon. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, access to transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to the subject of every episode.
Mehmet Gurses on the transformation of Turkey’s Kurdish issue
December 23, 2025
Turkey Book Talk #260 – Mehmet Gurses, director of Kurdish Studies at the University of Central Florida, on his article “Turkey’s Kurdish Conflict Transformed”, recently published in the journal Current History.
The article places the PKK’s emergence and transformations in a historical context over the past four decades, also weighing up shifts that may be triggered by its current dialogue process with Ankara.
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Please support Turkey Book Talk as a member on either Substack or Patreon. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, access to transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to the subject of every episode.
Reuben Silverman on the rise and fall of Turkey’s Democrat Party
December 9, 2025
Turkey Book Talk #259 – Reuben Silverman on “The Rise and Fall of Turkey’s Democrat Party: The Cold War and Illiberalism, 1945–60” (Cambridge University Press).
It is an excellent book about a fascinating period in Turkish history. But it is a one that is often misremembered or misinterpreted in Turkey today.
Whether intended as criticism or praise, Erdogan’s AKP government is often placed in the lineage of the Democrat Party and Adnan Menderes, prime minister for 10 years before being overthrown in a military coup in 1960. However, as the book shows, “the line from the Democrat Party to the present day is neither as straight nor as flattering as Erdogan would have it be”.
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Please support Turkey Book Talk as a member on either Substack or Patreon. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, access to transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to the subject of every episode.
Seçil Daǧtaș on religious difference in Turkey’s Hatay
November 25, 2025
Turkey Book Talk #258 – Seçil Daǧtaș, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Waterloo, on “Under the Same Sky: Everyday Politics of Religious Difference in Southern Turkey” (University of Pennsylvania Press)
The book is an ethnographic study of what Dagtas describes as “the social reproduction of religious differences” in Turkey’s uniquely diverse Hatay province.
The conversation also addresses the impact of the deadly 2023 earthquakes that devastated the region, as well as over a decade of war in neighbouring Syria.
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Please support Turkey Book Talk as a member on either Substack or Patreon. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, access to transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to the subject of every episode.
Turkey Book Talk #257 – Senem Aydın-Düzgit, professor of international relations at Sabanci University and director of the Istanbul Policy Centre, on her article “Foreign Policy as Domestic Politics in Populist Competitive Authoritarianism: The Case of the May 2023 Elections in Turkey,” published in the journal South European Society and Politics.
The conversation looks at how Erdogan uses foreign policy, defence policy and strongman diplomacy to burnish his reputation and reinforce public backing for the regime in Turkey. This strategy comes amid greater opportunity, as growing geopolitical uncertainty opens doors for ambitious players to reshape the international system based on raw power politics.
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Please support Turkey Book Talk as a member on either Substack or Patreon. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, access to transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to the subject of every episode.
Nora Fisher Onar on Turkish political history beyond binaries
October 28, 2025
Turkey Book Talk #256 – Nora Fisher Onar, Associate Professor and Chair of Global Studies at University of San Francisco, on “Contesting Pluralism(s): Islamism, Liberalism, and Nationalism in Turkey and Beyond” (Cambridge University Press).
The book aims to “challenge the received wisdom that a binary contest between ‘Islam’ and ‘secularism’ is the driving force in Turkey’s politics”. It voices the same scepticism about other binary divides often used to explain Turkey’s political history, instead proposing an alternative theory of alliances between pluralist and non-pluralist forces that shift over time.
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Please support Turkey Book Talk as a member on either Substack or Patreon. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, access to transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to the subject of every episode.
Sean Mathews on Greece’s regional comeback amid rivalry with Turkey
October 14, 2025
Turkey Book Talk #255 – Sean Mathews, Athens-based journalist at Middle East Eye, 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 largely been triggered by neighbouring Turkey’s growing assertiveness and revisionism. It suggests that this competition increasingly means we should view Greece as a Levantine or even Middle Eastern country, anchored in the East Mediterranean.
Download the episode or listen below:
Read a transcript of the interview on Substack.
Listen to Turkey Book Talk : Apple / Spotify / PodBean / Stitcher / PlayerFM / Listen Notes
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Please support Turkey Book Talk as a member on either Substack or Patreon. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, access to transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to the subject of every episode.
Perin Gurel on the history of comparing Turkey and Iran in the West
September 30, 2025
Turkey Book Talk #254 – Perin Gurel of the University of Notre Dame on “Türkiye, Iran, and the Politics of Comparison: America’s Wife, America’s Concubine” (Cambridge University Press).
The book looks at diplomatic history, popular culture and media portrayals to explore the cultural history of Turkey–Iran comparisons in the West, from Cold War-era modernisation theory to post-9/11 studies of “moderate Islam”.
Download the episode or listen below:
Read a transcript of the interview on Substack.
Use the code “PERIN2025” to get a 20% discount when buying the book on the Cambridge University Press website.
Listen to Turkey Book Talk : Apple / Spotify / PodBean / Stitcher / PlayerFM / Listen Notes
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Please support Turkey Book Talk as a member on either Substack or Patreon. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, access to transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to the subject of every episode.
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