Turkey Book Talk #245 – David Tonge on “The Enduring Hold of Islam in Turkey: The Revival of the Religious Orders and Rise of Erdogan” (Hurst).
The book meticulously explores the political, economic and social influence of major Islamic orders in the country over the last few decades, including the flourishing of several key groups under Erdogan’s AKP.
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Read a transcript of the interview on Substack
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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 #244 – Richard Calis, assistant professor in cultural history at Utrecht University, on “The Discovery of Ottoman Greece: Knowledge, Encounter, and Belief in the Mediterranean World of Martin Crusius” (Harvard University Press).
The book examines the life and impact of Martin Crusius. Born in Bavaria in 1526, Crusius became celebrated as Europe’s preeminent expert on the Greek world past and present, as well as the Orthodox Greeks in the Ottoman Empire. In his seminal work Turcograecia, he wrote the period’s richest record of Greek life under Ottoman rule, which served for centuries as a key source of knowledge on the Ottoman Empire itself.
The conversation addresses how Crusius’s work affected European views of the Ottoman Empire and the deep chasm between the Christian and Muslim worlds that his perspective reflected.
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
Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / BlueSky
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.



