Mustafa Menshawy on the Muslim Brotherhood in exile in Turkey
December 8, 2020
Turkey Book Talk #130 – Mustafa Menshawy, associate professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies and associate fellow at University of Westminster, on “Leaving the Muslim Brotherhood: Self, Society and the State” (Palgrave).
The interview addresses how the migration of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood leaders and members from Egypt to Turkey in recent years has changed the group.
Download the episode or listen below:
Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow Turkey Book Talk on Facebook or Twitter
Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s 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.
Turkey Book Talk #129 – Elizabeth Rodini on “Gentile Bellini’s Portrait of Sultan Mehmed II: Lives and Afterlives of an Iconic Image” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury).
The book explores how and why the Venetian painter came to the Ottoman court in 1479, as well as his portrait’s many intriguing afterlives in subsequent centuries.
Download the episode or listen below:
Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow Turkey Book Talk on Facebook or Twitter
Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s 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.
Jan-Markus Vomel on the past and future of political Islam in Turkey
November 10, 2020
Turkey Book Talk #128 – Jan-Markus Vomel, doctoral student at the University of Konstanz, on the origins and development of political Islam in Turkey from the 1950s to 2000, as well as its role today.
Download the episode or listen below:
Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow Turkey Book Talk on Facebook or Twitter

Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s 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.
Louis Fishman on Jews and Palestinians in the late Ottoman era
October 27, 2020
Turkey Book Talk #127 – Louis Fishman, associate professor at Brooklyn College at the City University of New York, on “Jews and Palestinians in the Late Ottoman Era, 1908-1914: Claiming the Homeland” (Edinburgh University Press).
Download the episode or listen below:
Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow Turkey Book Talk on Facebook or Twitter
Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s 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.
Umut Azak on Hagia Sophia and the future of Turkey’s religious nationalist status quo
October 13, 2020
Turkey Book Talk #126 – Umut Azak of Okan University on this summer’s conversion of the Hagia Sophia from museum to mosque, the history of calls on Turkey’s religious right to take that step, and the future of the country’s religious nationalist status quo under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Download the episode or listen below
Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow Turkey Book Talk on Facebook or Twitter


Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s 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.
Ahmet Kuru on Islam, authoritarianism and underdevelopment
September 29, 2020
Turkey Book Talk #125 – Ahmet Kuru, professor of political science at San Diego State University, on “Islam, Authoritarianism and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison” (Cambridge University Press).
The book traces the causes of low socio-economic development in many Muslim-majority countries to the 11th century, when Kuru argues an alliance of orthodox Islamic scholars and military states started to hinder intellectual and economic creativity.
Download the episode or listen below
Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow Turkey Book Talk on Facebook or Twitter

Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s 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.
Zeynep Çelik on archaeology and heritage in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey
September 15, 2020
Turkey Book Talk #124 – Zeynep Çelik, professor of architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, on the origins of archaeology in the Ottoman Empire, the response to the European pursuit of antiquities, and questions of heritage in contemporary Turkey.
Çelik is author of “Empire, Architecture and the City: French-Ottoman Encounters, 1830-1914” (University of Washington Press) and “About Antiquities: Politics of Archaeology in the Ottoman Empire” (University of Texas Press), among others.
Download the episode or listen below
Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow Turkey Book Talk on Facebook or Twitter

Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s excellent Turkey Recap weekly newsletter
As mentioned at the end of the episode, Nektaria Anastasiadou’s debut novel, “A Recipe for Daphne”, has just been published by Hoopoe Books. Check out details here and order it from Hoopoe here.
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 #123 – Alan Mikhail, professor of history at Yale University, on “God’s Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire and the Making of the Modern World” (WW Norton).
The book is a hugely ambitious, continent-spanning reexamination of the life and times of Selim I, who ruled from 1512 to 1520 and whose reign saw seismic changes in Ottoman and world history.
Download the episode or listen below
Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow Turkey Book Talk on Facebook or Twitter

Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s 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.
Sinem Adar on the militarisation of Turkey’s foreign policy
August 18, 2020
Turkey Book Talk episode #122 – Sinem Adar, associate in the Centre for Applied Turkey Studies at the SWP think tank in Berlin, on the hardening of Turkey’s foreign policy in the Middle East, the East Mediterranean and Europe, as well as the Turkish government’s soft power investments.
Download the episode or listen below
Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow Turkey Book Talk on Facebook or Twitter

Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s 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.
Turkey Book Talk episode #121 – Richard Antaramian, assistant professor of history at the University of Southern California, on his book “Brokers of Faith, Brokers of Empire: Armenians and the Politics of Reform in the Ottoman Empire” (Stanford University Press).
The book examines the Armenian community’s experiences with the Ottoman Empire’s “Tanzimat” modernising reforms of the mid-19th century.
Download the episode or listen below
Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow Turkey Book Talk on Facebook or Twitter

Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s 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.
Turkey Book Talk episode #120 – Berk Esen, assistant professor of international relations at Ankara’s Bilkent University, on his paper “Why did Turkish democracy collapse? A political economy account of the AKP’s authoritarianism”, co-authored with Şebnem Gümüşçü for the journal Party Politics.
Esen also recently published “Praetorian Army in Action: A Critical Assessment of Civil–Military Relations in Turkey” in the journal Armed Forces and Society.
Download the episode or listen below
Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow Turkey Book Talk on Facebook or Twitter

Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s 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.






