New Books in Turkish Studies
Episodes
Faisal H. Husain, "Rivers of the Sultan: The Tigris and Euphrates in the Ottoman Empire" (Oxford UP, 2021)
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Rivers of the Sultan offers a history of the Ottoman Empire's management of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the early modern period. During the ear...
Sarah-Neel Smith, "Metrics of Modernity: Art and Development in Postwar Turkey" (U California Press, 2022)
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Metrics of Modernity: Art and Development in Postwar Turkey (University of California Press, 2022) is a vivid portrait of the art world of 1950s Tu...
Hannes Grandits, "The End of Ottoman Rule in Bosnia: Conflicting Agencies and Imperial Appropriations" (Routledge, 2021)
05 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Hannes Grandits, Chair in Southeast European History at Humboldt University in Berlin, is among the very few most prominent historians of the Bal...
Marc David Baer, "The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs" (Basic Books, 2021)
17 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Ottoman Empire has been many things throughout its long history. One of the greatest and gravest threats to Christian Europe. A source of inspirat...
David Leupold, "Embattled Dreamlands: The Politics of Contesting Armenian, Kurdish and Turkish Memory" (Routledge, 2020)
18 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Embattled Dreamlands: The Politics of Contesting Armenian, Kurdish and Turkish Memory (Routledge, 2020) explores the complex relationship between com...
Ian Almond, "World Literature Decentered: Beyond the 'West' Through Turkey, Mexico and Bengal" (Routledge, 2021)
27 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Almond is Professor of World Literature at Georgetown University in Qatar, and author of six books, including Two Faiths, One Banner: When Muslim...
E. Natalie Rothman, "The Dragoman Renaissance: Diplomatic Interpreters and the Routes of Orientalism" (Cornell UP, 2021)
24 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Dragoman Renaissance: Diplomatic Interpreters and the Routes of Orientalism (Cornell UP, 2021) is a fascinating study of a crucial early modern ...
Avner Wishnitzer, "As Night Falls: Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Cities after Dark" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
16 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In a world that is constantly awake, illuminated and exposed, there is much to gain from looking into the darkness of times past. Avner Wishnitzer's ...
Ümit Kurt, "The Armenians of Aintab: The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province" (Harvard UP, 2021)
17 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ümit Kurt, born and raised in Gaziantep, Turkey, was astonished to learn that his hometown once had a large and active Armenian community. The Armeni...
Dilek Kurban, "Limits of Supranational Justice: The European Court of Human Rights and Turkey's Kurdish Conflict" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
28 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dilek Kurban’s Limits of Supranational Justice: The European Court of Human Rights and Turkey's Kurdish Conflict (Cambridge UP, 2020) considers t...
Leonidas Mylonakis, "Piracy in the Eastern Mediterranean: Maritime Marauders in the Greek and Ottoman Aegean" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
20 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Leonidas Mylonakis (PhD in History from the University of California, San Diego) is the author of Piracy in the Eastern Mediterranean: Maritime M...
Gábor Ágoston, "The Last Muslim Conquest: The Ottoman Empire and Its Wars in Europe" (Princeton UP, 2021)
13 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The image of the Ottoman Turks and their interaction with the Christian West, has undergone many changes in the past: from William Gladstone's famous ...
Soner Çaǧaptay, "A Sultan in Autumn: Erdogan Faces Turkey's Uncontainable Forces" (I. B. Tauris, 2021)
12 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A Sultan in Autumn: Erdogan Faces Turkey's Uncontainable Forces (I. B. Tauris, 2021) is a primer for anybody who wants to understand modern Turkish p...
Ayse Parla, "Precarious Hope: Migration and the Limits of Belonging in Turkey" (Stanford UP, 2019)
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There are more than 700,000 Bulgaristanlı migrants residing in Turkey. Immigrants from Bulgaria who are ethnically Turkish, they assume certain privi...
Richard Antaramian, "Brokers of Faith, Brokers of Empire: Armenians and the Politics of Reform in the Ottoman Empire" (Stanford UP, 2020)
24 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In today's program, I speak with Richard E. Antaramian about his recent monograph, Brokers of Faith, Brokers of Empire: Armenians and the Politics...
Samy Ayoub, "Law, Empire, and the Sultan: Ottoman Imperial Authority and Late Hanafi Jurisprudence" (Oxford UP, 2020)
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In his majestic and magisterial new book Law, Empire, and the Sultan: Ottoman Imperial Authority and Late Hanafi Jurisprudence (Oxford UP, 2020), S...
Devi Mays, "Forging Ties, Forging Passports: Migration and the Modern Sephardi Diaspora" (Stanford UP, 2020)
26 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Forging Ties, Forging Passports: Migration and the Modern Sephardi Diaspora (Stanford University Press, 2020) is a history of migration and nation-bu...
Caterina Scaramelli, "How to Make a Wetland: Water and Moral Ecology in Turkey" (Stanford UP, 2021)
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How to Make a Wetland: Water and Moral Ecology in Turkey (Stanford UP, 2021) tells the story of two Turkish coastal areas, both shaped by ecological ...
Jenny White, "Turkish Kaleidoscope: Fractured Lives in a Time of Violence" (Princeton UP, 2021)
13 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The scene is Turkey in the mid-to-late Seventies. A young male college student hops onto a bus. He sits next to a cute female student from his class, ...
Christine M. Philliou, "Turkey: A Past Against History" (U California Press, 2021)
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Christine M. Philliou's Turkey: A Past Against History (University of California Press, 2021) challenges conventional understandings about the trans...
Shibli Numani, "Turkey, Egypt, and Syria: A Travelogue" (Syracuse UP, 2019)
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Turkey, Egypt, and Syria: A Travelogue (Syracuse UP, 2019) vividly captures the experiences of prominent Indian intellectual and scholar Shibli Nu'm...
David Hosaflook (trans.), "The Siege of Shkodra: Albania's Courageous Stand Against Ottoman Conquest, 1478" (2017)
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mehmet the Conqueror shook Europe to its foundations when he captured Constantinople in 1453 and, over the next decades, the Ottoman sultan continued ...
Ayfer Karakaya-Stump, "The Kizilbash-Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia: Sufism, Politics, and Community" (Edinburgh UP)
30 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In today's program, Ayfer Karakaya-Stump, Associate Professor of History at the College of William and Mary, discusses her recently-published monogra...
Elizabeth Thompson, "How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2020)
23 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Europe’s Great War engulfed the Ottoman Empire, Arab nationalists rose in revolt against their Turkish rulers and allied with the British on th...
Oya Dursun-Özkanca, "Turkey–West Relations: The Politics of Intra-alliance Opposition" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
22 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do we make sense of Turkey’s recent turn against the West – after decades of Turkish cooperation and desire to be integrated into the European...
Dina Danon, "The Jews of Ottoman Izmir: A Modern History" (Stanford UP, 2020)
18 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Across Europe, Jews were often confronted with the notion that their religious and cultural distinctiveness was somehow incompatible with the modern a...
Khatchig Mouradian, "The Resistance Network: The Armenian Genocide and Humanitarianism in Ottoman Syria, 1915-1918" (MSU Press, 2020)
09 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Resistance Network: The Armenian Genocide and Humanitarianism in Ottoman Syria, 1915-1918 (Michigan State University Press, 2020) is the history...
Amit Bein, "Kemalist Turkey and the Middle East: International Relations in the Interwar Period" (Cambridge UP, 2017)
08 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
To better understand the lasting legacy of international relations in the post-Ottoman Middle East, Amit Bein's Kemalist Turkey and the Middle East:...
Michael Christo Low, "Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj" (Columbia UP, 2020)
28 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
With the advent of the steamship, repeated outbreaks of cholera marked oceanic pilgrimages to Mecca as a dangerous form of travel and a vehicle for th...
Salih Can Açıksöz, "Sacrificial Limbs: Masculinity, Disability, and Political Violence in Turkey" (U California Press, 2019)
22 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sacrificial Limbs: Masculinity, Disability, and Political Violence in Turkey (University of California Press, 2020) is an exploration of “the ways...
Eve M. Troutt Powell, "Tell This in my Memory: Stories of Enslavement from Egypt, Sudan, and the Ottoman Empire" (Stanford UP, 2013)
29 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tell This in my Memory : Stories of Enslavement from Egypt, Sudan, and the Ottoman Empire (Stanford University Press) is a study of slavery, liberatio...
Noel Malcolm, "Useful Enemies: Islam and the Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750" (Oxford UP, 2019)
22 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sir Noel Malcolm’s captivating new book, Useful Enemies: Islam and the Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750 (Oxford University Pre...
Will Smiley, "From Slaves to Prisoners of War: The Ottoman Empire, Russia, and International Law" (Oxford UP, 2018)
18 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In his book From Slaves to Prisoners of War: The Ottoman Empire, Russia, and International Law (Oxford University Press, 2018), Will Smiley examines t...
Ulrike Freitag, "A History of Jeddah: The Gate to Mecca in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
10 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ulrike Freitag’s A History of Jeddah: The Gate to Mecca in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Cambridge University Press), offers a rich urban ...
Begüm Adalet, "Hotels and Highways: The Construction of Modernization Theory in Cold War Turkey" (Stanford UP, 2018)
08 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
During the opening decades of the Cold War, US policymakers and academics used modernization theory to provide an alternative model to communism for i...
Ünver Rüstem, "Ottoman Baroque: The Architectural Refashioning of Eighteenth-Century Istanbul" (Princeton UP, 2019)
28 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Istanbul, there is a mosque on every hill. Cruising along the Bosphorus, either for pleasure, or like the majority of Istanbul’s denizens, for tr...
Eric Dursteler, "In the Sultan’s Realm: Two Venetian Reports on the Early Modern Ottoman Empire" (CRRS, 2018)
23 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the Sultan’s Realm: Two Venetian Reports on the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2018) is Professor E...
Christopher Houston, "Istanbul, City of the Fearless: Urban Activism, Coup D’Etat, and Memory in Turkey" (U California Press, 2020)
09 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Based on extensive field research in Turkey, Istanbul, Christopher Houston's new book Istanbul, City of the Fearless: Urban Activism, Coup D’Etat, a...
Barbara Spackman, "Accidental Orientalists: Modern Italian Travelers in Ottoman Lands" (Liverpool UP, 2017)
06 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Barbara Spackman’s riveting study identifies a strand of what it calls “Accidental Orientalism” in narratives by Italians who found themselves i...
Perin Gürel, "The Limits of Westernization: A Cultural History of America in Turkey" (Columbia UP, 2017)
06 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s podcast, host Robert Elliott speaks with Dr. Perin Gürel about her new book The Limits of Westernization: A Cultural History of America ...
Charlie Laderman, "Sharing the Burden: The Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention, and Anglo-American Visions of Global Order" (Oxford UP, 2019)
18 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In Sharing the Burden: The Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention, and Anglo-American Visions of Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2019), C...
David Gaunt, "Let Them Not Return" (Berghahn Books, 2017)
13 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes it seems that there’s nothing left to say about mass violence in the 20th century. But the new edited volume Let Them Not Return: Sayfo –...
Emrah Şahin, "Faithful Encounters: Authorities and American Missionaries in the Ottoman Empire" (McGill-Queens UP, 2018)
25 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The past decade has seen a tremendous production of scholarship on American missionary endeavors in the Middle East. In Faithful Encounters: Authoriti...
Erik Sjöberg, "The Making of the Greek Genocide: Contested Memories of the Ottoman Greek Catastrophe" (Berghahn Books, 2018)
01 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Most of the time, memory studies focuses on well-known case studies. The result Is that we know lots about commemoration and memory regarding the Hol...
Jeremy F. Walton, "Muslim Civil Society and the Politics of Religious Freedom in Turkey" (Oxford UP, 2017)
28 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The social history of Turkey across the twentieth century has produced a tension between state governance and religion. This history informs and shape...
Stacy Fahrenthold, "Between the Ottomans and the Entente: The First World War in the Syrian and Lebanese Diaspora, 1908-1925" (Oxford UP, 2019)
19 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In her debut book, Between the Ottomans and the Entente: The First World War in the Syrian and Lebanese Diaspora, 1908-1925 (Oxford University Press, ...
Vahram Ter-Matevosyan, "Turkey, Kemalism and the Soviet Union: Problems of Modernization, Ideology and Interpretation" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)
13 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Vahram Ter-Matevosyan new book Turkey, Kemalism and the Soviet Union: Problems of Modernization, Ideology and Interpretation (Palgrave Macmillan, exa...
Jennifer Dixon, "Dark Pasts: Changing the State’s Story in Turkey and Japan" (Cornell UP, 2018)
06 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Jennifer Dixon’s Dark Pasts: Changing the State’s Story in Turkey and Japan (Cornell University Press, 2018), investigates the Japanese and Turkis...
Houri Berberian, "Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian and Ottoman Worlds" (U California Press, 2019)
07 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In her newest book, Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian and Ottoman Worlds (University of Californ...
Elizabeth A. Fraser, "Mediterranean Encounters: Artists Between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, 1774–1839" (Penn State UP, 2017)
23 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth A. Fraser's Mediterranean Encounters: Artists Between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, 1774–1839 (Penn State University Press, 2017) takes i...
Hüseyin Yılmaz, "Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought" (Princeton UP, 2018)
07 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Islamic intellectual history, it is generally assumed that the Ottomans did not contribute much to Islamic thought. With his new book, Caliphate Re...
Sumantra Bose, "Secular States, Religious Politics, India, Turkey and the Future of Secularism" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
28 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sumantra Bose's new book Secular States, Religious Politics, India, Turkey and the Future of Secularism (Cambridge University Press, 2018) is a fascin...
Daniel Stolz, “The Lighthouse and the Observatory: Islam, Science, and Empire in Late Ottoman Egypt” (Cambridge UP, 2018)
05 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Both a history of science and a history of Islam, The Lighthouse and the Observatory: Islam, Science, and Empire in Late Ottoman Egypt (Cambridge Univ...
Jennifer A. Miller, “Turkish Guest Workers in Germany: Hidden Lives and Contested Borders, 1960s to 1980s” (U Toronto Press, 2018)
04 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
During the 1960s, West Germany eagerly courted workers from Turkey to manage a labor shortage during the country’s Economic Miracle. This program ca...
Hans-Lukas Kieser, “Talaat Pasha: Father of Modern Turkey, Architect of Genocide” (Princeton UP, 2018)
19 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
As a graduate student, I spent quite a bit of time explaining to people how we needed to pay much more attention to the history of World War One in th...
Ethan L. Menchinger, “The First of the Modern Ottomans: The Intellectual History of Ahmed Vasif” (Cambridge UP, 2017)
22 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Ethan L. Menchinger‘s The First of the Modern Ottomans: The Intellectual History of Ahmed Vasif (Cambridge University Press, 2017) traces the life...
Toufoul Abou-Hodeib, “A Taste for Home: The Modern Middle Class in Ottoman Beirut” (Stanford UP, 2017)
15 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Toufoul Abou-Hodeib‘s A Taste for Home: The Modern Middle Class in Ottoman Beirut (Stanford University Press, 2017) is a welcome addition to the sch...
Jannica Budde, “Turkish Women Writers in German Cities” (Königshausen and Neumann, 2017)
25 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Germany, beginning in the 1960s, a major population shift took place. The reason for it was the German guest worker program. Due to the German ‘e...
Didem Havlioglu, “Mihri Hatun: Performance, Gender-Bending, and Subversion in Ottoman Intellectual History” (Syracuse UP, 2017)
13 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Mihri Hatun: Performance, Gender-Bending, and Subversion in Ottoman Intellectual History (Syracuse University Press, 2017) by Didem Havlioglu is at on...
Larry Wolff, “The Singing Turk” (Stanford UP, 2016)
19 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In The Singing Turk: Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage from the Siege of Vienna to the Age of Napoleon (Stanford University Pr...
Adam Mestyan, “Arab Patriotism: The Ideology and Culture of Power in Late Ottoman Egypt” (Princeton UP, 2017)
15 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Studies of Arab nationalism populate the field of Middle Eastern studies, perhaps even overpopulate it. However, what Adam Mestyan does in Arab Patrio...
Reina Lewis, “Muslim Fashion: Contemporary Style Cultures” (Duke UP, 2015)
15 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Fashion is often dismissed as trivial, but Reina Lewis‘s Muslim Fashion: Contemporary Style Cultures (Duke University Press, 2015) takes both it and...
Devin Naar, “Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece” (Stanford UP, 2016)
19 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece (Stanford University Press, 2016) Devin Naar delves deep into the archives to produce...
Victor Taki, “Tsar and Sultan: Russian Encounters with the Ottoman Empire” (I.B. Taurus, 2016)
14 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Victor Taki’s Tsar and Sultan: Russian Encounters with the Ottoman Empire (I.B. Taurus, 2016) invites the reader to explore the captivating story of...
Sarah Abrevaya Stein, “Extraterritorial Dreams: European Citizenship, Sephardi Jews, and the Ottoman Twentieth Century” (U. of Chicago Press, 2016)
19 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Abrevaya Stein’s rich new book, Extraterritorial Dreams: European Citizenship, Sephardi Jews, and the Ottoman Twentieth Century (University of...
Anders Ingram, “Writing the Ottomans: Turkish History in Early Modern England” (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2015)
22 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
You read a lot about “Orientalism,” that is, the often odd ways in which Westerners tried to understand predominantly Middle Eastern peoples and c...
Stefan Ihrig, “Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler” (Harvard UP, 2016)
18 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
At least twice in past interview descriptions I’ve used the famous phrase attributed to Hitler: “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation ...
Dana Sajdi, “The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Levant” (Stanford UP, 2012)
16 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In her stunning new book The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Levant (Stanford University Press, 2012), Dana Saj...
Guy Burak, “The Second Formation of Islamic Law: The Hanafi School in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire” (Cambridge UP, 2015)
23 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The Second Formation of Islamic Law: The Hanafi School in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Cambridge UP, 2015) is a new contribution to the study of I...
M. Alper Yalcinkaya, “Learned Patriots: Debating Science, State, and Society in the 19th-Century Ottoman Empire” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
15 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What were Ottomans talking about when they talked about science? In posing and answering that question (spoiler: they were talking about people), M. A...
F. M. Gocek, “Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence against the Armenians” (Oxford UP, 2015)
11 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Adolf Hitler famously (and probably) said in a speech to his military leaders “Who, after all, speaks to-day of the annihilation of the Armenians?”...
M. Brett Wilson, “Translating the Qur’an in an Age of Nationalism: Print Culture and Modern Islam in Turkey” Oxford University Press, 2014
06 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Muslim debates regarding the translation of the Qur’an are very old. However, during the modern period they became heated because local communities ...
Bedross Der Matossian, “Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Liberty to Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire” (Stanford UP, 2014)
24 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The Young Turk revolution of 1908 restored the Ottoman constitution, suspended earlier by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, and initiated a new period of parliam...
Sener Akturk, “Regimes of Ethnicity and Nationhood in Germany, Russia, and Turkey (Cambridge UP, 2012)
11 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
What processes must take place in order for countries to radically redefine who is a citizen? Why was Russia able to finally remove ethnicity from int...
Ronald Suny et al., “A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire” (Oxford UP, 2011)
02 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Hitler famously said about the Armenian genocide “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” For much of the last 75 year...
Michael A. Reynolds, “Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908-1918” (Cambridge UP, 2011)
22 Apr 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Most of us live in a world of nations. If you were born and live in the Republic of X, then you probably speak X-ian, are a citizen of X, and would gl...
Giancarlo Casale, “The Ottoman Age of Exploration” (Oxford UP, 2010)
18 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
You’ve probably heard of the “Age of Exploration.” You know, Henry the Navigator, Vasco da Gama, Columbus, etc., etc. But actually that was the ...