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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Turkey Book Talk episode 163 – Noah Amir Arjomand, Mark Helmke Postdoctoral Scholar in Global Media, Development and Democracy at the Center for International Media Assistance and Indiana University’s School of Global and International Studies, on “Fixing Stories: Local Newsmaking and International Media in Turkey and Syria” (Cambridge University Press).
The book is a detailed study of the role of fixers – local intermediaries who grease the wheels between journalists and sources – in international news coverage on Turkey and Syria.
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Ramazan Aras on the past and present of the Turkey-Syria border
December 7, 2021
Turkey Book Talk episode 156 – Ramazan Aras, professor of social and cultural anthropology at Istanbul’s Ibn Haldun University, on “The Wall: The Making and Unmaking of the Turkish-Syrian Border” (Palgrave Macmillan).
The book examines the effect on local Kurdish communities of the foundation of the Turkey-Syria border in 1923 and its hardening in subsequent decades, leading most recently to Turkey’s building of a hi-tech security wall along the length of the border.
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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.
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Soner Cagaptay on Syria and Erdoğan’s Middle East quandary
October 22, 2019
Turkey Book Talk episode #101 – Soner Çağaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, on how Turkey’s military incursion into northeast Syria fits into President Erdoğan’s broader policies in the Middle East.
Çağaptay is the author of three books since 2014 on Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy, most recently “Erdogan’s Empire: Turkey and the Politics of the Middle East” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury).
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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.
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Emre Erşen on Turkey’s pivot to Eurasia
August 27, 2019
Turkey Book Talk episode #97 – Emre Erşen, associate professor of political science and international relations at Marmara University, discusses the past, present and future of Ankara’s relations with Russia and China.
Erşen is co-editor, along with Seçkim Köstem, of “Turkey’s Pivot to Eurasia: Geopolitics and Foreign Policy in a Changing World Order” (Routledge).
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Also check out episode #83 – Selim Koru on Turkey, Russia and the power of political resentment
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 90+ episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
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Turkey Book Talk episode #91 – Selim Deringil, professor of history at the Lebanese American University, on “The Ottoman Twilight in the Arab Lands: Turkish Memoirs and Testimonies of the Great War” (Academic Studies Press).
The volume includes translations and annotations of fascinating memoirs by five Ottomans stationed in Syria and the Arab Peninsula during the First World War: Falih Rıfkı Atay, Hüseyin Kazım Kadri, Ali Fuad Erden, Münevver Ayaşlı and Naci Kıcıman.
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Related episodes
- Yiğit Akın on the Ottoman home front during World War One
- Michael Provence on the last Ottoman generation and the making of the Middle East
- Ryan Gingeras on the fall of the Ottoman sultanate
Join as 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 90+ 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.
Michael Provence on ‘the last Ottoman generation’
July 10, 2018
Turkey Book Talk episode #68 – Michael Provence of UC San Diego on “The Last Ottoman Generation and the Making of the Modern Middle East” (Cambridge University Press).
Over the past four years the centenary of the First World War has prompted a new focus on the conflict’s historical importance. In Europe the war ushered in the modern age and precipitated the downfall of old regimes, but it perhaps had an even more cataclysmic impact in the Middle East, precipitating a crumbling of the regional order that caused chaos and destruction.
“The Last Ottoman Generation” looks at continuities rather than ruptures, focusing on various individuals who came of age in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, socialized into ways of thinking and operating in a vanished network of Ottoman institutions.
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Here’s my review of the book from a few weeks ago.
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Turkey Book Talk #61 – DIANA DARKE on “THE MERCHANT OF SYRIA: A HISTORY OF SURVIVAL” (Hurst), which tells the story of Abu Chaker, a textile merchant from Homs who lived from 1921 to 2013.
The book traces Abu Chaker’s life in parallel with the story of the modern history of Syria, examining the social, cultural and political context that shaped him. It also touches on the emergence of the ongoing war, which Darke herself witnessed as she was living in a historical courtyard house in Damascus’ old town until a few years ago.
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Here is Diana’s article on Afrin for the BBC that we mention in the conversation.
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get extra content. Members get full transcripts (in English and Turkish) of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire Turkey Book Talk archive (in English) and access to an exclusive 30% discount on over 200 Turkey/Ottoman History titles published by IB Tauris.
Michael M. Gunter on the Kurds of Syria in peace and war
October 24, 2015
My interview this week was with Professor Michael M. Gunter, author of “Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War” (Hurst).
The slim book charts the Syrian Kurds’ rise to international profile since 2011, taking in their modern history under Ba’athist oppression, their development of “national conscience,” and ties between the PYD in northern Syria and the PKK in Turkey.
Download the interview in podcast form.
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Here’s the text of the interview at HDN.
And here’s my review.
Diana Darke on ‘My House in Damascus’
September 12, 2015
This week I spoke to Diana Darke, the author of “My House in Damascus: An Inside View of the Syrian Revolution.” The book describes her experiences after buying a 17th century courtyard house in the center of Damascus in 2005, including Syria’s descent into bloody civil war after 2011.
Here’s a link to my interview with Darke at the Hurriyet Daily News.
And here’s my review of the book from a couple of days ago.
The interview is also available in podcast form. Download here.
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