Shortest History of Turkey

‘A marvellous book, fast-moving and thought-provoking’ DR FRED ANSCOMBE, BIRKBECK, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
Istanbul was once Europe’s largest city, and today Turkey is the fifth most visited country in the world. At its height the Ottoman Empire – the longest-lasting Islamic empire in history – stretched from the borders of Austria to the Persian Gulf, from the steppe to the Sudan.

This brilliant distillation traces Turkey’s rich history from the rise of the Ottomans to the founding of the modern Turkish Republic, up to the populist, authoritarian regime of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

From wars of conquest to carpets, from popular music to the politics of headwear (fez or fedora?), Fortna charts the ironies of Turkish history, caught between East and West, secularism and theocracy, the multicultural imperial past and a nation state bent on ethnic unity.