Turkey Book Talk #274 – Sinem Adar, head of the Centre for Applied Turkey Studies at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, returns to the podcast.
The conversation takes stock of Turkey’s international profile and domestic political trajectory after its recent hosting of the NATO summit in Ankara.
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Turkey Book Talk #273 – Hannah Lucinda Smith on “Hinterlands: Journeys through Europe’s Unfinished Frontiers” (Profile Books).
The book is based on vivid reporting from Eastern Europe, the East Mediterranean and the Caucasus, as places like Kosovo, Bosnia, Karabakh, Transnistria, Crimea and Cyprus become geopolitical hotspots with ambitious revisionist powers like Russia and Turkey looking to secure a greater share of the pie.
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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 Bloomsbury Academic, access to transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to the subject of every episode.
Mustafa Kutlay on Turkey’s middle power dilemmas
July 22, 2025
Turkey Book Talk #249 – Mustafa Kutlay, senior lecturer in comparative politics at City St George’s University of London, on his recent Foreign Affairs article “Turkey’s Middle-Power Dilemma”.
Turkey is widely cited as one of the increasingly influential players in the emerging world order, with greater appetite and greater capacity to play a bigger role in its region and elsewhere.
Mustafa’s article focuses on the successes and failures of the Turkish government’s bid to carve out that greater role in the name of “strategic autonomy”. It also underlines the risks posed by this new world of increasingly ambitious, competitive powers clashing and cooperating with each other.
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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.
Samim Akgönül on 100 years of Turkish-Greek relations
September 24, 2024
Turkey Book Talk #228 – Samim Akgönül, director of the Department of Turkish Studies at the University of Strasbourg, on “One Hundred Years of Greek-Turkish Relations: The Human Dimension of an Ongoing Conflict” (Edinburgh University Press).
Based on over two decades of research in Turkey and Greece, the book examines popular conceptions of the other in both countries, showing how lived experience complicates straightforward historical narratives.
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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 #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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Marc David Baer on the Ottomans as khans, caesars and caliphs
November 9, 2021
Turkey Book Talk episode #154 – Marc David Baer, professor of international history at the London School of Economics and Political Science, on “The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars and Caliphs” (Basic Books).
The book makes the case that the Ottoman Empire is an inseparable part of European history – not as antithesis of the Christian West but as an intimate and active participant in the continent’s shifting cultural and political tides.
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Turkey Book Talk episode #151 – Giancarlo Casale, chair of early modern Mediterranean history at the European University Institute and associate professor of history at the University of Minnesota, on “Prisoner of the Infidels: The Memoir of an Ottoman Muslim in 17th Century Europe” (University of California Press).
Casale edited and translated the book, the first English-language edition of Osman of Timişoara‘s fascinating memoir describing his years as prisoner and slave in the Habsburg Empire from 1688 to 1699.
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Become a member on Patreon to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 30% 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.
Turkey Book Talk episode #141 – Sir Noel Malcolm, senior research fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford, on “Useful Enemies: Islam and the Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought 1450-1750” (Oxford University Press).
The book examines how early modern Western European writers shaped perceptions of the Ottoman Empire and Islam through fear, distrust and hostility, but also curiosity and admiration.
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Support Turkey Book Talk by becoming a member. Members get extras including exclusive access to a 30% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman history books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Ahmet Erdi Öztürk on Turkey’s cultural, political and religious footprint in the Balkans
April 13, 2021
Turkey Book Talk episode #139 – Ahmet Erdi Öztürk, associate professor and Marie Curie fellow at London Metropolitan University and Coventry University, and non-resident scholar at ELIAMEP, on “Religion, Identity and Power: Turkey and the Balkans in the Twenty-First Century” (Edinburgh University Press).
Based on extensive fieldwork in the region, the book examines how Turkey’s religious nationalist transformation under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is reflected in its expanding footprint in the Balkans.
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Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s excellent Turkey Recap weekly newsletter.
Support Turkey Book Talk by becoming a member. Members get extras including exclusive access to a 30% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman history books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Turkey Book Talk episode #117 – Oya Dursun-Özkanca, professor of political science at Elizabethtown College, on her book “Turkey-West Relations: The Politics of Intra-Alliance Opposition” (Cambridge University Press) and Ankara’s grand ambitions for the post-coronavirus world.
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Remember to 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.
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.
Alexander Clarkson on Turks and Kurds in Germany
October 13, 2017
Turkey Book Talk episode #49 – ALEXANDER CLARKSON of Kings College London discusses his research on the Turkish and Kurdish diaspora in Germany, addressed in his long article “Kenan Evren’s Bitter Harvest: Legacies of a Coup that Changed Turkey and Europe.”
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** SPECIAL OFFER **
Consider supporting 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 to support the podcast, if you enjoy or benefit from it: Make a pledge to Turkey Book Talk via Patreon. Many thanks to current supporters Michelle Zimmer, Steve Bryant, Jan-Markus Vömel, Celia Jocelyn Kerslake, Aaron Ataman, Max Hoffman, Andrew MacDowall and Paul Levin.
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