PODCAST · news
Turkey Book Talk
by William Armstrong
Conversations with journalists, academics and writers on Turkey and its region. New episode every two weeks.
Episodes
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Nefise Kahraman on bringing overlooked Turkish classics to new readers
Nefise Kahraman on Translation Attached, which brings lesser known Ottoman and Turkish literary gems to an English-reading audience. Translation Attached just published its seventh book, a volume of 25 short stories by the late author and diplomat Memduh Sevket Esendal (1883-1952). Please support...
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Dimitar Bechev on Turkey, Russia, China and the 'scramble for Europe'
Dimitar Bechev on “The Scramble for Europe: Russia, China, and Turkey Challenging Regional Order” (Oxford University Press). The book questions whether Ankara can be placed alongside Moscow and Beijing as a direct competitor to the EU, with a fundamentally different view on the challenges of an...
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Marc Sinan Winrow on Turkey and the liberal international order
Marc Sinan Winrow on “Turkey and the Liberal International Order: Hegemony, Contestation and the Politics of Articulation Since 1919” (Agenda Publishing, Edinburgh University Press). Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman…
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Benjamin Fortna on change and continuity in Ottoman and Turkish history
Benjamin Fortna, professor of history at the University of Arizona, on “The Shortest History of Turkey: From the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic” (Old Street Publishing). Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History…
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Işılay Gürsu on archaeology and public perceptions in Turkey
Işılay Gürsu on “Public Dialogues in Archaeology: New Methodologies from Turkey” (Bloomsbury Academic). The book explores the Turkish public's perception and understanding of the country's rich archaeological heritage. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35%...
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Onur İnal on the rise of late Ottoman İzmir
Onur İnal on “Gateway to the Mediterranean: An Environmental History of Late Ottoman Izmir” (Cambridge University Press). The book shows how the cosmopolitan coastal city of Izmir flourished in the 19th century to become a major link between the Ottoman Empire, Europe and the rest of the world....
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Sinem Adar on Turkey's role in a fracturing Western alliance
Sinem Adar, head of the Centre for Applied Turkey Studies at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, on Turkey's international profile and domestic political trajectory after its recent hosting of the NATO summit in Ankara. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or...
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Hannah Lucinda Smith on Turkey, Russia and Europe's hinterlands
Hannah Lucinda Smith on “Hinterlands: Journeys through Europe’s Unfinished Frontiers” (Profile Books). The book shows how Eastern Europe, the East Mediterranean and the Caucasus are becoming geopolitical hotspots as revisionist powers like Russia and Turkey look to secure a greater share of the...
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Doruk Erhan on the limits of Turkey's shift to autocracy
Doruk Erhan on the crackdown on Turkey's main opposition party. Judicial operations on the CHP have led pundits to warn the country is shifting to a post-democratic system of arbitrary rule, but in recent articles for the Verfassungsblog, Erhan makes a relatively optimistic case for the...
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Jennifer Hattam on writing the Lonely Planet guide to Turkey
Istanbul-based journalist Jennifer Hattam on her work updating the Lonely Planet guide to Turkey. The conversation touches on the immense amount of work and miles that go into updating the guide, as well as how Turkey has changed since she first did the job. Please support Turkey Book Talk on...
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Brett Wilson on the myth and reality of modern Turkey's religious reforms
Brett Wilson on his article "Sufi Leaders in the early Turkish Republic: Profession, Privilege, and Persecution (1925-1950)". The piece studies the impact of the 1925 outlawing of Islamic religious orders, challenging the traditional idea of harsh secularist persecution. Please support Turkey…
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Suzy Hansen on Turkey and an Istanbul neighborhood in the age of Erdoğan
Suzy Hansen on “From Life Itself: Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdoğan” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The book focuses on Istanbul's Karagumruk to explore the everyday impact of geopolitical upheaval, economic turbulence and the arrival of Syrian migrants in Turkey. Please...
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Faisal Devji on the crisis of 'global Islam' in Turkey and elsewhere
Faisal Devji on “Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam” (Yale University Press). The book argues that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Islam in countries including Turkey transformed into a modern ideological system like capitalism or communism, but this process has now...
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Ryan Gingeras on organised crime in Turkey's modern history
Ryan Gingeras, author of “Mafia: A Global History” (Simon & Schuster) and “Heroin, Organized Crime, and the Making of Modern Turkey” (Oxford University Press), on the influence of criminal organisations in Turkey's political and economic life over the decades. Please support Turkey Book Talk on...
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Mustafa Aksakal on World War I and the end of the Ottoman Empire
Mustafa Aksakal, associate professor of history at Georgetown University, on “The War that Made the Middle East: World War I and the End of the Ottoman Empire” (Princeton University Press) Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman...
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Michelle Lynn Kahn on Turkish migration to Germany
Michelle Lynn Kahn on “Foreign in Two Homelands: Racism, Return Migration and Turkish-German History” (Cambridge University Press). Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury,...
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Murat Yıldız on the Ottoman world of sports, modernisation and minorities
Murat Yıldız, associate professor of history at Skidmore College, on “The Ottoman World of Sports: Refashioning Bodies, Men, and Communities in Late Imperial Istanbul” (University of Texas Press) Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all...
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Berin Gür on the conquest of Istanbul in the Islamist-nationalist imagination
Berin Gür on “The Conquest of Istanbul and the Manipulation of Architecture: The Islamist-Nationalist Rhetoric of Conquest and Melancholy” (Routledge). The book explores how the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul is remembered in Turkey's mainstream official narrative and how architecture contributes…
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Adnan Khan on the human toll of Turkey's importing of Europe's waste
Journalist Adnan Khan on the spectacular growth of Turkey's plastic waste imports and the role of migrant labour in the sector. His work paints a grim portrait of how the EU-Turkey migration deal and China's banning of plastic waste imports have helped the industry flourish in Turkey - with…
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Burcu Karahan on sexual freedom and women in late Ottoman fiction
Burcu Karahan on her translation of “One Thousand and One Kisses: The Most Joyous and Flirtatious Stories” (Translation Attached). The book brings together 65 stories blending humour and eroticism, published anonymously in 1923-24. The stories are a fascinating time capsule of a vanished age, but...
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Mehmet Gurses on the transformation of Turkey's Kurdish issue
Mehmet Gurses on his article “Turkey's Kurdish Conflict Transformed”, published in the Current History journal. The conversation places the PKK's emergence and transformations in a historical context over the past five decades, also weighing up shifts that may be triggered by its current dialogue...
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Reuben Silverman on the rise and fall of Turkey's Democrat Party
Reuben Silverman on “The Rise and Fall of Turkey's Democrat Party: The Cold War and Illiberalism, 1945–60” (Cambridge University Press). Today's AKP government is often placed in the lineage of the Democrat Party, in power for 10 years before being overthrown in a coup in 1960. But as the book...
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Seçil Daǧtaș on religious difference in Turkey's Hatay
Seçil Daǧtaș on “Under the Same Sky: Everyday Politics of Religious Difference in Southern Turkey” (University of Pennsylvania Press). The book is an ethnographic study of “the social reproduction of religious differences” in Turkey's uniquely diverse Hatay province. Please support Turkey Book…
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Senem Aydin-Duzgit on foreign policy weaponisation in Turkish domestic politics
Senem Aydın-Düzgit on her article “Foreign Policy as Domestic Politics in Populist Competitive Authoritarianism,” published in the South European Society and Politics journal. The conversation looks at how Erdogan uses foreign policy, defence policy and strongman diplomacy to reinforce public...
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Nora Fisher Onar on Turkish political history beyond binaries
Nora Fisher Onar on “Contesting Pluralism(s): Islamism, Liberalism, and Nationalism in Turkey and Beyond” (Cambridge University Press). The book challenges the common belief that a binary contest between "Islam" and "secularism" is the driving force behind Turkey's modern history. Please support...
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Sean Mathews on Greece's regional comeback amid rivalry with Turkey
Sean Mathews on “The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and Return of the Near East” (Hurst). The book examines Greece's comeback as a regional player, arguing that this has been triggered in large part by neighbouring Turkey's own increasing assertiveness. Please support Turkey Book Talk on...
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Perin Gurel on the history of comparing Turkey and Iran in the West
Perin Gurel on “Türkiye, Iran, and the Politics of Comparison: America's Wife, America's Concubine” (Cambridge University Press). The book explores the cultural history of Turkey–Iran comparisons in the West, from Cold War-era modernisation theory to post-9/11 studies of “moderate Islam”. Please...
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Gokhan Bacik on Turkey's citizenship-selling programme
Gokhan Bacik on his article “Selling Citizenship in Turkey: Political Parties, Pragmatism, and Polarization,” recently published in the journal “Nationalism and Ethnic Politics”. The article examines the government's Citizenship By Investment scheme, its economic and social consequences, and the...
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Amy Marie Spangler on Leyla Erbil's dark vision of Istanbul's history
Amy Marie Spangler on the late great author Leyla Erbil's What Remains. First published in 2011, the book is a multilayered narrative that sweeps from the Byzantine Empire to 20th century Turkey. It is also a dark elegy to the Istanbul of eras past and all that has been lost in its…
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Özgür Özkan on the 'dangerous illusion' of Turkey's PKK peace bid
Özgür Özkan, visiting scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, on the domestic and regional implications of Turkey's push for the Kurdish militant group's dissolution. The conversation digs into issues raised by his recent article “Turkey's Dangerous Illusion of...
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Christopher Dole on psychiatry and disaster in Turkey
Christopher Dole on “Living On: Psychiatry and the Future of Disaster in Turkey” (Stanford University Press). The book examines the psychiatric response to the deadly 1999 Marmara Earthquake, examining the legacy of the earthquake in the lives of its survivors and the Turkish mental health...
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Mustafa Kutlay on Turkey's middle power dilemmas
Mustafa Kutlay on his recent Foreign Affairs article “Turkey's Middle-Power Dilemma”, examining the successes and failures of Ankara's bid to carve out a greater role in the emerging multipolar world. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all...
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Bilge Yabancı on Turkey's civil society under siege
Bilge Yabancı on “Civil Society and Authoritarianism: Co-optation, Repression and Contestation in Turkey” (Edinburgh University Press). The book examines the transformation of civil society groups under pressure from mounting authoritarianism. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack....
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Erik-Jan Zürcher on imperial nostalgia in Turkey and Britain
Erik-Jan Zürcher on the uses and abuses of nostalgia for empire in contemporary Turkey and the UK. The conversation is based on Zurcher's recent lecture at the Istanbul Policy Center, “The Poison of Nostalgia”, which compared neo-Ottomanist tendencies in Turkey with the view of empire in…
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Talin Suciyan on Armenians in Turkey after World War Two
Talin Suciyan on “Armenians in Turkey after the Second World War: An Archival Reader of USSR Consular Documents” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury). The book examines the oral testimonies of Armenians who registered to migrate to Soviet Armenia. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get…
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David Tonge on the enduring hold of Islamic orders in Turkey
David Tonge on “The Enduring Hold of Islam in Turkey: The Revival of the Religious Orders and Rise of Erdogan” (Hurst). The book explores the political, economic and social influence of key Islamic orders in the country over the last few decades. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack....
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Richard Calis on Martin Crusius and the discovery of Ottoman Greece
Richard Calis on “The Discovery of Ottoman Greece: Knowledge, Encounter, and Belief in the Mediterranean World of Martin Crusius” (Harvard University Press). Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB...
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Fiona Mullen on the Cyprus question amid growing geopolitical uncertainty
Fiona Mullen, director of the Nicosia-based Sapienta Economics consultancy, on uncertainty around the future of the decades-long Cyprus divide amid mounting geopolitical uncertainty and regional competition. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all...
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Bilge Yesil on Turkey's narrowing media landscape
Bilge Yesil on Turkey's narrowing media landscape and internet crackdown amid political turbulence, protests and mounting pressure on critics. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury,...
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Berk Esen on whether Turkey has shifted from authoritarianism to autocracy
Berk Esen on whether Ekrem Imamoglu's arrest heralds Turkey's shift from competitive authoritarianism to autocracy, dynamics driving the government's crackdown, the international context, and critical choices facing the country's opposition. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack....
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Cuma Çiçek on PKK disarmament and the future of Turkey's Kurdish issue
Cuma Çiçek, author of “The Kurds of Turkey: National, Religious and Economic Identities” (IB Tauris), on the dynamics behind Ankara's push for the PKK's dissolution, what it means for Turkish politics and what it means for the future of the Kurdish issue. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or...
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Selim Koru on Turkey's role in the emerging anti-liberal world order
Selim Koru on "New Turkey and the Far Right: How Reactionary Nationalism Remade a Country" (IB Tauris). The book dives deep into the worldview driving Turkey's regime change in recent years, and its profound domestic and foreign policy implications. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or…
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Claudia Liebelt on cosmetic surgery and perceptions of beauty in Turkey
Claudia Liebelt on "Istanbul Appearances: Beauty and the Making of Middle-Class Femininities in Urban Turkey" (Syracuse University Press). Based on research in beauty salons and cosmetic centres across Istanbul, the book explores the cosmetic sector's extraordinary growth in recent years. Support...
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Brett Wilson on Yakup Kadri's controversial late Ottoman novel 'Nur Baba'
Brett Wilson on his translation of Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoglu's 1922 novel "Nur Baba" (Routledge). The book's account of a debauched Bektashi Sufi lodge caused a sensation at the time, raising eyebrows with its depiction of an immoral, even degenerate religious community in turn-of-the-century...
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Omar Kadkoy on the future of Syrian migrants in Turkey
Omar Kadkoy, foreign policy, security and migration program coordinator at Heinrich Böll Stiftung's Istanbul office, on the future of Turkey's Syrian migrant population after the fall of Assad. Become a member on Patreon or Substack to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all...
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Zozan Pehlivan on climatic shifts behind late Ottoman conflicts
Zozan Pehlivan on "The Political Ecology of Violence: Peasants and Pastoralists in the Last Ottoman Century" (Cambridge University Press). The book explores how extreme climate disruptions were a major factor behind tensions between Christian Armenian peasants and Muslim Kurdish pastoralists in...
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Samuel Hirst on a century of Ankara-Moscow cooperation
Samuel J. Hirst on "Against the Liberal Order: The Soviet Union, Turkey, and Statist Internationalism, 1919-1939" (Oxford University Press). The conversation addresses key episodes of collaboration between Ankara and Moscow on political, industrial and cultural projects since the early republican...
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Ralph Hubbell on the work of Turkish literary giant Oğuz Atay
Ralph Hubbell on translating Oğuz Atay's "Waiting for the Fear" (New York Review Books). Atay is widely seen as one the great Turkish fiction writers of the 20th century, but has largely yet to appear in English until now. Become a member on Patreon or Substack to support Turkey Book Talk.…
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Jennifer Hattam on Istanbul's shifting cultural landscape
Jennifer Hattam reflects on a decade-and-a-half of reporting on Turkey's environmental, political and cultural agenda, as well as wrenching changes in journalism and staying afloat amid Istanbul's relentless urban upheaval. Become a member on Patreon or Substack to support Turkey Book Talk.…
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Salim Çevik on Turkey's Middle East reset
Salim Çevik on his recent SWP paper "Turkey’s Reconciliation Efforts in the Middle East: Ambitions and Constraints in a Changing Regional Order". The paper examines Erdogan's shift away from trying to overthrow the established regional order towards rapprochement with Egypt, the UAE, Saudi…
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Turkey Book Talk have?
Turkey Book Talk currently has 250 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Turkey Book Talk about?
Conversations with journalists, academics and writers on Turkey and its region. New episode every two weeks.
How often does Turkey Book Talk release new episodes?
Turkey Book Talk publishes regularly with 250 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Turkey Book Talk?
You can listen to Turkey Book Talk on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Turkey Book Talk?
Turkey Book Talk is created and hosted by William Armstrong.
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