Brand new Turkey Book Talk episode.
KAPKA KASSABOVA joins the pod to discuss her book “BORDER: A JOURNEY TO THE EDGE OF EUROPE” (Granta), on the troubled past and present of the border between Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria.
Download the episode or listen below.
Listen out for a cameo appearance by my cat at around the 23:09 mark.
Here’s my review of the book at HDN.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / RSS
Follow on Facebook or Twitter.
*SPECIAL OFFER*
You can support Turkey Book Talk by taking advantage of a 33% discount plus free delivery (cheaper than Amazon) on five different titles, courtesy of Hurst Publishers:
- ‘Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of Islamic State’ by Olivier Roy
- ‘The Circassian: A Life of Eşref Bey, Late Ottoman Insurgent and Special Agent’ by Benjamin Fortna
- ‘The New Turkey and its Discontents’ by Simon Waldman and Emre Çalışkan
- ‘The Poisoned Well: Empire and its Legacy in the Middle East’ by Roger Hardy
- ‘Out of Nowhere: The Syrian Kurds in Peace and War’ by Michael Gunter
Follow this link to get that discount from Hurst Publishers.
Another way you can support is by making a donation to Turkey Book Talk via Patreon. Many thanks to current supporters Özlem Beyarslan, Steve Bryant, Celia Jocelyn Kerslake and Aaron Ataman.
Benjamin Fortna on the controversial life of Eşref Kuşçubaşı
February 10, 2017
University of Arizona Professor Benjamin Fortna discusses “The Circassian: A Life of Eşref Bey, Late Ottoman Insurgent and Special Agent” (Hurst).
Eşref Kuşçubaşı was a secret service operative in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, who later turned his back on the resistance forces of Mustafa Kemal during the War of Independence and ended up in exile for almost 30 years. Fortna’s biography is the most detailed account of Eşref’s contentious life, based on exclusive access to previously unexamined papers.
Download the episode or listen below.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / RSS
Follow on Facebook or Twitter.
As mentioned in the episode, Turkey Book Talk listeners can get a 33% discount plus free delivery on this and three other titles published by Hurst – “The New Turkey and its Discontents” by Simon Waldman and Emre Çalışkan, “The Poisoned Well: Empire and its Legacy in the Middle East” by Roger Hardy, and “Out of Nowhere: The Syrian Kurds in Peace and War” by Michael Gunter. Follow this link to get that discount.
If you enjoy or benefit from the podcast and want to support it, click here to make a donation to Turkey Book Talk via Patreon!
Many thanks to my current supporters Özlem Beyarslan, Steve Bryant, Celia Jocelyn Kerslake and Aaron Ataman.
Hale Yılmaz on social transformation in Turkey, yesterday and today
January 27, 2017
In this new Turkey Book Talk episode Southern Illinois University associate professor of history Hale Yılmaz speaks about her book “Becoming Turkish: Nationalist Reforms and Cultural Negotiations in Early Republican Turkey, 1923-1945” (Syracuse University Press).
Download the episode or listen below.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / RSS
Follow on Facebook or Twitter.
Background reading:
- Alexandros Lamprou discusses his book on the People’s Houses: “Nation-Building in Modern Turkey: The People’s Houses, the State and the Citizen”.
- A visit to Mahmut Makal on the 60th anniversary of his autobiographical book “Bizim Köy” (Our Village), describing the tough life of a village teacher in early republican Turkey.
If you enjoy or benefit from the podcast and want to support it, click here to make a small or large donation to Turkey Book Talk via Patreon.
Many thanks to my current supporters Özlem Beyarslan, Steve Bryant, Celia Jocelyn Kerslake and Aaron Ataman.
Kaya Genç on rage and revolution in modern Turkey
November 25, 2016
Kaya Genç returns to the Turkey Book Talk podcast. This time he joins to discuss his new book “Under the Shadow: Rage and Revolution in Modern Turkey,” which profiles young Turks from across the political spectrum.
Download the episode or listen below:
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Facebook / RSS
My review of the book will be appearing in the next couple of weeks in the Times Literary Supplement so keep your eyes peeled for that.
Here’s the episode from earlier this year with Kaya discussing “An Istanbul Anthology”, which he edited:
NB: If you like this podcast and want to support independent podcasting, click here to make a small or large monetary donation to Turkey Book Talk via Patreon.
Many thanks to current supporters Özlem Beyarslan, Steve Bryant, Celia Jocelyn Kerslake and Aaron Ataman.
Michael Wuthrich on the history of elections in Turkey and the future of Turkish democracy
September 17, 2016
New Turkey Book Talk episode with Michael Wuthrich, chatting about “National Elections in Turkey: People, Politics and the Party System” (Syracuse University Press).
This really is an excellent book that overhauls much conventional wisdom about Turkish politics shared by right and left.
Unlike the deceptively boring title of the book, this episode’s title is stupidly ambitious. But we do cover a lot of ground. I’m really pleased with it – hope you enjoy/learn from it.
Download the episode or listen below.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Facebook / RSS
Here’s my review of the book in HDN.
Many thanks to current supporters Özlem Beyarslan, Steve Bryant, Andrew Cruickshank and Aaron Ataman.
Cem Emrence on ‘remapping the Ottoman Middle East’
July 15, 2016
Cem Emrence speaks to Turkey Book Talk about his book “Remapping the Ottoman Middle East: Modernity, Imperial Bureaucracy and Islam” (IB Tauris).
The book looks at Ottoman modernization through the 19th and early 20th centuries using an original model of “three-trajectories”: The coast, the interior, and the frontier, which each followed distinct paths to modernity.
Download the episode or listen below.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Facebook / RSS
Here’s my review of the book at Hürriyet Daily News.
If you like Turkey Book Talk and want to support independent podcasting, you can make a small or large monetary donation to the show via Patreon. Many thanks to current supporters Özlem Beyarslan, Steve Bryant and Andrew Cruickshank.
Ryan Gingeras on the fall of the Ottoman sultanate
May 14, 2016
A welcome return to the pod to Ryan Gingeras, who joins to talk about his new book “The Fall of the Sultanate: The Great War and the End of the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1922” (Oxford University Press).
Download the podcast or listen below.
Subscribe: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Facebook / RSS
Here’s my review of the book at HDN.
This is Ryan’s second appearance on the Turkey Book Talk podcast. Click here to listen to him discussing his recently published biography of Atatürk: “Mustafa Kemal Atatürk: Heir to an Empire.”
Support the podcast via Patreon. Many thanks to current supporters Özlem Beyarslan, Steve Bryant and Andrew Cruickshank.
Şakir Dinçşahin on the life and times of Niyazi Berkes, 1908-1988
February 20, 2016
Here’s my conversation with Şakir Dinçşahin about his book on the life and times of Turkish intellectual Niyazi Berkes.
Download the podcast, or listen below:
You can also now subscribe to the Turkey Book Talk podcast on Stitcher. Alternatively subscribe via iTunes or via PodBean.
Here’s my review of “State and Intellectuals: The Life and Times of Niyazi Berkes” (Rowman) at the Hürriyet Daily News.
If the issues discussed are your thing, check out this interview from last year with Andros Lamprou, who wrote an interesting book on the People’s Houses.
Also worth plugging this piece I wrote a couple of years ago on Mahmut Makal and his book “Bizim Köy” (Our Village), on his experiences as a teacher at a Village Institute in the 1940s.
Frederike Geerdink on Turkey’s Kurdish question
February 5, 2016
This week’s podcast is with Frederike Geerdink, author of “The Boys are Dead: The Roboski Massacre and the Kurdish Question in Turkey” (Gomidas).
We chat about her time as a journalist in the Kurdish-majority city Diyarbakır, her deportation from Turkey last year, and the troubled history/present of the issue in the wake of the collapse of the peace process last summer.
Download the podcast, or listen below:
Here’s my review of the book at Hürriyet Daily News.
Subscribe to the Turkey Book Talk podcast via iTunes or via PodBean.
Follow Frederike Geerdink on Twitter.
Added bonus: I’ve dug out this interview from last year with sociologist Cem Emrence, co-author of “Zones of Rebellion: Kurdish Insurgents and the Turkish State” – quite a thought-provoking book.
Ryan Gingeras on ‘Atatürk: Heir to an Empire’
January 23, 2016
This week I spoke to author Ryan Gingeras on his new biography of Turkey’s founding father, “Mustafa Kemal Atatürk: Heir to an Empire” (Oxford University Press).
Or just listen here:
Here’s an edited transcript of the interview.
And here’s my review of the book (which is highly recommended).
As I mentioned in the podcast, here’s a link to an interview I did with Ryan last year about another of his books, “Heroin, Organized Crime, and the Making of Modern Turkey.”
Subscribe to the Turkish Book Talk Podcast via PodBean, or via iTunes.
Kaya Genç talks Istanbul writing
January 9, 2016
Happy New Year!
First Turkey Book Talk pod of the year is with novelist Kaya Genç, the editor of “An Istanbul Anthology” (AUC Press), a new selection of classic writing on Istanbul by classic names including Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
Happily, I’ve finally picked up a decent mic so the podcasts should now be more listenable. Hooray!
Here’s text of interview at the Hürriyet Daily News.
And here’s my review of the book.
Subscribe to the Turkey Book Talk podcast via iTunes or PodBean.
Markus Dressler on the ‘making of Turkish Alevi Islam’
November 28, 2015
This week’s interview/podcast is with Markus Dressler, author of the book “Writing Religion: The Making of Turkish Alevi Islam.” The book examines how the idea of Alevism is an almost entirely modern concept, formed towards the end of the Ottoman Empire as part of efforts to integrate disparate Anatolian religious groups into the Turkish and Muslim nation.
Download a podcast of our conversation.
Here’s a transcript of the interview at the Hürriyet Daily News.
Here’s my review of the book.
Subscribe to the Turkey Book Talk podcast via iTunes, PodBean, or Soundcloud.
NB – I’ve also just created a Facebook page for the podcast, where I’ll be posting new episodes. Check it out here.
Turkey Book Talk 