Turkey Book Talk #268 – Faisal Devji, professor of global and imperial history at Balliol College, Oxford, 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 stopped being primarily a religious movement focused on scripture and the divine, instead transforming into a modern ideological system like capitalism or communism. In countries including Turkey, that process paved the intellectual path for Islamism’s emergence as a political force, reshaping the trajectories of those states.
However, it also suggests that the limits of this transnational moment were reached long ago, and that we are now seeing the results of a crisis of political Islam in Turkey and elsewhere.
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
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 Bloomsbury Academic, access to transcripts of every interview, 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.
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
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.
Samuel Hirst on a century of Ankara-Moscow cooperation
December 17, 2024
Turkey Book Talk #234 – Samuel J. Hirst, historian and assistant professor of international relations at Bilkent University, on “Against the Liberal Order: The Soviet Union, Turkey, and Statist Internationalism, 1919-1939” (Oxford University Press).
The book examines crucial but sometimes overlooked decades of close cooperation between the young Republic of Turkey and the Soviet Union on key political, industrial and cultural projects. The conversation also discusses later episodes of collaboration between Ankara and Moscow in the 1960s and 70s, as well as the bromance between Erdogan and Putin today.
Download the episode or listen below:
Read a transcript of the interview on Substack
Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Spotify / 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.
Turkey Book Talk #205 – Alp Yenen on “A Hundred Years of Republican Turkey: A History in a Hundred Fragments” (Leiden University Press).
Along with Erik-Jan Zürcher, Alp co-edited the volume, published to mark the centenary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey. It is a rich potpourri of 100 short chapters, written by over 70 scholars, examining different aspects of modern Turkish political, social, cultural and economic history.
Download the episode or listen below:
Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Spotify / Google Podcasts / PlayerFM / Listen Notes
Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter
Become a member on Patreon 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, links to related content upon publication of each episode, and over 200 book reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.
Check out and sign up to the excellent Turkey Recap.
Spyros Sofos on Turkey’s many nationalisms
September 19, 2023
Turkey Book Talk #202 – Spyros Sofos, Assistant Professor in Global Humanities at Simon Fraser University, on “Turkish Politics and ‘The People’: Mass Mobilisation and Populism” (Edinburgh University Press).
The book delves into the nuances and ambiguities of 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.
Download the episode or listen below:
Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Spotify / Google Podcasts / PlayerFM / Listen Notes
Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter
Become a member on Patreon 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, links to related content upon publication of each episode, and over 200 book reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.
Check out and sign up to the excellent Turkey Recap.
Turkey Book Talk #200 – 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 Anthony’s grandfather, Gad Franco, a prominent journalist, social activist and lawyer in the late Ottoman and early republican eras. It also charts his gradual disillusionment after advocating Jewish integration into Ottoman and later Turkish society, which culminated in his imprisonment and impoverishment following the 1942 Wealth Tax.
Download the episode or listen below:
Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Spotify / Google Podcasts / PlayerFM / Listen Notes
Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter
Become a member on Patreon 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, links to related content upon publication of each episode, and over 200 book reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.
Check out and sign up to the excellent Turkey Recap.
Turkey Book Talk #184 – Gregory Goalwin, assistant professor and chair of the sociology department at Aurora University, on “Borders of Belief: Religious Nationalism and the Formation of Identity in Ireland and Turkey” (Rutgers University Press).
The book explores how religion – Catholicism in Ireland, Islam in Turkey – served as a fundamental building block of the two countries’ national identity throughout the 20th century.
Download the episode or listen below:
Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter
Become a member on Patreon 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, links to related content upon publication of each episode, and over 200 book reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.
Check out and sign up to the excellent weekly newsletter Turkey Recap.
Ryan Gingeras on the last days of the Ottoman Empire, 1918-1922
December 6, 2022
Turkey Book Talk #182 – Ryan Gingeras, professor of history in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, California, 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, as well as how these years are remembered in today’s Turkey.
Download the episode or listen below:
Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter
Become a member on Patreon 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, links to related content upon publication of each episode, and over 200 book reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.
Check out and sign up to the excellent Turkey Recap weekly newsletter.
Sevgi Adak on anti-veiling campaigns in Turkey
September 27, 2022
Turkey Book Talk #177 – Sevgi Adak, associate professor at the International Aga Khan University, on “Anti-Veiling Campaigns in Turkey: State, Society and Gender in the Early Republic” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury).
The book examines measures taken by the Turkish authorities against women’s veiling, as well as other forms of clothing, in the 1920s and 1930s. It complicates the rigid idea of sweeping official measures imposed from the centre onto a passive, traditional and resentful Turkish public, giving us a more nuanced and sophisticated account of dynamics between state and society.
Download the episode or listen below:
Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter
Become a member on Patreon to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury (including the book featured in this episode), transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, links to related content upon publication of each episode, and over 200 book reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.
Check out and sign up to the excellent Turkey Recap weekly newsletter.
Turkey Book Talk episode 173 – Gönül Bozoğlu, Leverhulme Research Fellow at Newcastle University, on “Museums, Emotion and Memory Culture: The Politics of the Past in Turkey” (Routledge).
The book focuses on the Panorama 1453 Museum in Istanbul and the Atatürk and War of Independence Museum in Ankara to show how history in Turkey is often a battleground where contemporary identities clash for supremacy.
Download the episode or listen below:
Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter
Become a member on Patreon 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, links to related content upon publication of each episode, and over 200 book reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.
Check out and sign up to the excellent Turkey Recap weekly newsletter.
Turkey Book Talk episode 169 – Murat Metinsoy, professor of political science and international relations at Istanbul University, on “The Power of the People: Everyday Resistance and Dissent in the Making of Modern Turkey, 1923-38” (Cambridge University Press).
The book takes a bottom-up approach to examine how ordinary people’s reaction to Kemalist reforms shaped, modified or softened how those reforms were implemented on the ground.
Download the episode or listen below:
Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter
Become a member on Patreon 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, links to related content upon publication of each episode, and over 200 book reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.
Check out and sign up to the excellent Turkey Recap weekly newsletter.
Hakan Özoğlu on Mark Bristol and the founding of US-Turkey ties in the 20th century
January 18, 2022
Turkey Book Talk episode 159 – Hakan Özoğlu, professor of history and director of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Central Florida, on Admiral Mark L. Bristol, US high commissioner in Istanbul from 1919 to 1927.
Compared with many European diplomats during the period, Bristol had a relatively pro-Turkish, pro-Muslim perspective. His observations and recommendations helped shape US policy in the Ottoman Empire, and also helped lay the foundations of the strategic partnership between Turkey and the US during the Cold War.
Özoğlu is author of “The Decline of the Ottoman Empire and the Rise of the Turkish Republic: Observations of an American Diplomat, 1919-1927” (Edinburgh University Press).
Download the episode or listen below:
Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow our new Instagram account
Become a member on Patreon 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.
Check out and sign up to Diego Cupolo’s excellent Turkey Recap weekly newsletter.
Turkey Book Talk 