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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Turkey Book Talk #251 – 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 article “Turkey’s Dangerous Illusion of Peace with the PKK”.
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Read a transcript of the interview on Substack
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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 #240 – Cuma Çiçek, author of “The Kurds of Turkey: National, Religious and Economic Identities” (IB Tauris), on the dynamics behind Ankara’s latest push to put an end to over four decades of the PKK’s insurgency.
The conversation discusses jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan’s call for the group’s disarmament, the implications for affiliated forces in Iraq and Syria, and what it means for Turkish politics.
Download the episode or listen below:
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.
Zozan Pehlivan on climatic shifts behind late Ottoman conflicts
January 7, 2025
Turkey Book Talk #235 – Zozan Pehlivan, assistant professor of history at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, on “The Political Ecology of Violence: Peasants and Pastoralists in the Last Ottoman Century” (Cambridge University Press).
The book explores how extreme climate disruptions played into socioeconomic shifts and became a major underlying factor behind rising tensions between Christian Armenian peasants and Muslim Kurdish pastoralists in eastern Anatolia in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
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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 #217 – Christopher Phillips, professor of international relations at Queen Mary, University of London, on “Battleground: Ten Conflicts that Explain the New Middle East” (Yale University Press).
The conversation explores the region’s fiendishly complicated geopolitical rivalries, as well as how Turkey’s push for greater influence in Syria, Iraq and Libya has reverberated on its ties with numerous other ambitious powers.
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Turkey Book Talk #216 – Seda Demiralp, professor of political science at Istanbul’s Işık University and non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, on what the recent surprise local election results mean for Turkish politics.
The conversation takes in what the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) did right, what Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) did wrong, the emerging challenge to the AKP posed by the hardline Islamist Yeniden Refah Party, the performance of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, and the impact of Turkey’s economic woes.
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Nilay Özok-Gündoğan on political authority in Ottoman Kurdistan
October 17, 2023
Turkey Book Talk #204 – Nilay Özok-Gündoğan, assistant professor of history at Florida State University, 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 Empire’s east, as well as how their autonomy was removed as the empire modernised and centralised from the 19th century.
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Turkey Book Talk #193 – Aron Aji discusses the life and work of Turkish author Ferit Edgü
Aji’s translations of Edgü’s excellent, austere novellas “The Wounded Age” and “Eastern Tales” were recently published in a new single volume by New York Review Books.
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Turkey Book Talk #191 – Paul Levin, director of Stockholm University’s Institute for Turkish Studies, on “Migration from Turkey to Sweden: Integration, Belonging and Transnational Community” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury), co-authored with Bahar Baser.
The conversation looks at the demographic profile of the Turkey-origin migrants in Sweden, the power dynamics of Turkish and Kurdish communities in the country, and the imbroglio over Ankara’s continued non-ratification of Stockholm’s Nato membership bid.
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Gönül Tol on Erdogan’s wars at home and abroad
November 8, 2022
Turkey Book Talk #180 – Gönül Tol, director of the Turkey program at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, on “Erdogan’s War: A Strongman’s Struggle at Home and in Syria” (Oxford University Press).
The book tells the story of how developments in Syria have played a unique role in Erdogan’s political strategy, helping him construct his identity, consolidate his base, and divide and eliminate his domestic rivals. He has done this by shifting shape, emphasising different shades of Islamist or nationalist ideology at different times.
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Jonathan Parry on British encounters with the Ottomans
October 11, 2022
Turkey Book Talk #178 – 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 the development of British imperial interests in the Middle East from the Napoleonic Wars to the Crimean War in the 1850s, examining Britain’s engagement with the Ottoman authorities and with local communities of Arabs, Kurds, Christians and Jews across the region.
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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.
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Saniye Dedeoğlu on Syrian migrants, work and precarity in Turkey
August 16, 2022
Turkey Book Talk episode 174 – Saniye Dedeoglu of Mugla University 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.
Download the episode or listen below:
Check out the episode mentioned with Murat Erdogan from February 2021.
Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
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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.
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