Turkey Book Talk episode #113 – Ayfer Karakaya-Stump, associate professor of history at The College of William and Mary, on “The Kizilbash Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia: Sufism, Politics and Community” (Edinburgh University Press).
The book traces the origins of today’s Alevis as a unified religious group back to the 15th and 16th centuries.
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Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 100 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Turkey Book Talk episode #112 – Ryan Gingeras, professor of history at the Naval Postgraduate School in the US, on his book “Eternal Dawn: Turkey in the Age of Atatürk” (Oxford University Press).
This is his sixth and most ambitious book on the late Ottoman and early republican period, examining the conditions and paradoxes behind the rise and consecration of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk from the First World War, through the Turkish war of independence, and to his death in 1938.
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Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 100 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Turkey Book Talk episode #111 – Omar Kadkoy, policy analyst at the Ankara-based TEPAV think tank, on the over 3.5 million Syrian migrants and refugees in Turkey, the Turkey-EU migrant deal, shifting public opinion, and the legal future of Syrians in the country.
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Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 100 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Turkey Book Talk episode #110 – Onur İşçi, assistant professor at Ankara’s Bilkent University and director of its Centre for Russian Studies, on “Turkey and the Soviet Union during World War II: Diplomacy, Discord and International Relations” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury).
The book counter-intuitively argues that the breakdown in Turkey-Soviet relations the Second World War and at the start of the Cold War was an anomaly in a 20th century in which Turkey and Russia in fact cooperated widely.
We also take the opportunity to address present-day Ankara-Moscow ties and the situation in Syria.
Download the episode or listen below.
Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Check out the excellent Turkey Recap weekly newsletter

Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 100 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Ayse Zarakol on stigma and status anxiety in Turkey’s ties to the West
February 18, 2020
Turkey Book Talk episode #109 – Ayşe Zarakol, reader in international relations at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, on “After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West” (Cambridge University Press).
The book was published in English in 2011, and its second Turkish edition has just come out. It examines how a sense of “stigma” has dogged the way modern Turkey engages with the Western-led international order, as well as comparable cases of Japan and Russia.
Download the episode or listen below.
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Check out the excellent Turkey Recap weekly newsletter

Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 100 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Sign up as a member to support Turkey Book Talk via Patreon.
Ayhan Kaya on migration from Turkey to Europe, past and present
January 21, 2020
Turkey Book Talk episode #107 – Ayhan Kaya, Professor of Politics and Jean Monnet Chair at the Department of International Relations at Istanbul Bilgi University, on “Turkish Origin Migrants and Their Descendants: Hyphenated Identities in Transnational Space” (Palgrave Macmillan)
Particularly looking at migration from Turkey to Europe since the 1960s, Kaya argues that home and host countries have increasingly defined migrants within rigid, religiously-defined boundaries, with ambivalent results.
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Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 100 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Sign up as a member to support Turkey Book Talk via Patreon.
Turkey Book Talk episode #106 – Mike Giglio, staff writer at The Atlantic, on his book “Shatter the Nations: ISIS and the War for the Caliphate” (Public Affairs).
The book describes Giglio’s years reporting on the rise and fall of ISIS from Turkey, Syria and Iraq, including time embedded on the front line with Iraqi special forces and the Syrian Kurdish YPG.
Download the episode or listen below.
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Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 400 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Sign up as a member to support Turkey Book Talk via Patreon.
Bilge Yabancı on youth groups cultivating Turkey’s religious nationalism
December 17, 2019
Turkey Book Talk episode #105 – Bilge Yabancı, Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Graz’s Centre of Southeast European Studies, on her paper “Work for the Nation, Obey the State, Praise the Ummah: Turkey’s Government-oriented Youth Organizations in Cultivating a New Nation”, published in the journal Ethnopolitics.
Based on original fieldwork conducted over almost two years, the article explores the often umbilical relationship between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and over a dozen youth organisations that share its goal of shepherding Turkey down a religious, nationalist, conservative course.
Download the episode or listen below.
Here’s a link to the paper itself.
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This is the last episode of 2019. The next episode will be published in THREE weeks, on the first Tuesday of 2020. Thank you for listening throughout this year!
Here’s the link to sign up to Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s Turkey Recap weekly newsletter, mentioned at the end of the episode.
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 400 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics. A great Christmas present!
Sign up as a member to support Turkey Book Talk via Patreon.
Caner Yelbaşı on the Circassians in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire
December 3, 2019
Turkey Book Talk episode #104 – Caner Yelbaşı, researcher in history at Mardin Artuklu University, on “The Circassians in Turkey: War, Violence and Nationalism from the Ottomans to Atatürk” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury).
The book describes the course of Circassians in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey after they were driven from their north Caucasus homeland by the Russian Empire in the 19th century.
Download the episode or listen below.
Here’s our earlier episode from February 2017: Benjamin Fortna on Eşref Kuşçubaşı, late Ottoman insurgent and special agent
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Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 400 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics. A great Christmas present!
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Turkey Book Talk episode #103 – Jonathan Rugman, foreign affairs correspondent at Channel 4 News, on “The Killing in the Consulate: Investigating the Life and Death of Jamal Khashoggi” (Simon & Schuster).
The book examines the run-up and aftermath of the gruesome killing of Saudi journalist Khashoggi by a 15-man hit squad in Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul Consulate on 2 October 2018. It also delves into Khashoggi’s complicated professional and personal life, as well as the bitter diplomatic rivalry between Ankara and Riyadh that the killing shone a light on.
Download the episode or listen below.
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Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get a load of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 400 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Sign up as a member to support Turkey Book Talk via Patreon.
Zeynep Şentek on industry and politics in Dilovası, an environmental ‘disaster zone’
November 5, 2019
Turkey Book Talk episode #102 – Zeynep Şentek on the environment, public health and politics in Dilovası, a heavily polluted industrial district outside Istanbul.
Şentek is managing editor at BlackSea.EU, an investigative journalism platform that is part of the European Investigative Collaborations network. She is also one of the reporters of a recent investigation examining the grim health consequences of life in what a 2007 parliamentary commission called a “public health disaster zone”.
The article paints an almost hellish picture of life for the nearly 50,000 people in Dilovası, where dangerous chemicals are continuously belched into the air, cancer rates are reportedly well above average, and locals suffer from a range of severe respiratory conditions.
Here’s the report, “Toxic Valley”
Here’s a shorter report on an asbestos dump discovered in Dilovası
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Petruț Călinescu, theblacksea.eu
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get a load of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 400 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
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