Turkey: A Modern History (Library of Modern Turkey Book 27) by Erik J. Zürcher (PDF)

Description

This revised edition builds upon and updates its twin themes of Turkey’s continuing incorporation into the capitalist world and the modernization of state and society. It begins with the forging of closer links with Europe after the French Revolution, and the changing face of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. Zurcher argues that Turkey’s history between 1908 and 1950 should be seen as a unity, and offers a strongly revisionist interpretation of Turkey’s founding father, Kemal Ataturk. In his account of the period since 1950, Zurcher focuses on the growth of mass politics; the three military coups; the thorny issue of Turkey’s human right’s record; the alliance with the West and relations with the European Community; Turkey’s ambivalent relations with the Middle East; the increasingly explosive Kurdish question; and the continuing political instability and growth of Islam.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Erik Zurcher has done a service to all who may have an interest in recent history of Turkey, filling a much-needed gap. This is the second revised edition of the original 93 publication. It expands even more on the recent and more modern history in great detail. It is a nice compliment to Bernard Lewis’ “Emergence of Modern Turkey”. Zurcher has done a lot more than just reposting known history from other traditional sources. There is much new insight and analysis. Most of it is balanced, but he still has failed to refrain from “recommending” a “multi-national” state “solution” to the Kurdish “problem”. As if there is any possibility of it, or as if, after all he has researched and explained about modern Turkey, he would not know, better than anyone else that the unitary nature of the state is what has enabled it to exist in the first place. Given all their ethnic mixes, how often does one encounter a successful model of such a “state” in Europe or Eastern Europe or Middle East? Why such an enlightened solution is rarely pushed ahead in other similar situations, is a mystery. Germany still has to this day, purely ethnic based citizenship laws for example. Besides, why is a democracy that guarantees all individual freedoms to all citizens and makes no distinction among them is still found lacking?Though he occasionally acknowledges the long history of parliamentary and constitutional rule in Turkey, the judicious and brutally honest study of all the blemishes and imperfections of Turkish democracy throughout decades, creates or more like helps propagate the idea that Turks are in general still not comfortable with the concept of democracy, or that they still do not “get” it. It would have put things in better perspective if Zurcher for example had briefly mentioned what was going on in Europe through 20s, 30s and 40s and even 50s while Turkish democracy one way or another managed to stay on track.While history of various political parties and their roles has been very well covered, not all topics of importance have received the same attention. Turkey’s EU vocation is treated somewhat superficially for example.

⭐Very dry! The beginning was difficult to read. However. The book has several sections to make up for the harshness of the beginning. If you feel you have decent knowledge on the Middle East and Turkey this is not necessarily the book for you; however, you’re bound to find something new or interesting! Great for beginners; just note it is DRY.

⭐Scholarly. Some typos. But also the most thorough and detailed survey of modern Turkish history out there. Your other options are either written by journalists (low-brow and emotional) or political scientists (jargon-riddled and lightweight). This is the best book for the serious student of Turkey.

⭐This was a subject that interested me, but it turns out that the history of Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman Empire is rather boring. This book devolves into a dry discussion of politics without much discussion of culture or leading personalities. The towering figure of Ataturk is given surprisingly cursory treatment. The more recent history of Turkey, from 1990 to the present, was a bit more interesting, as it impinges on current events, but overall this book was hardly an example of outstanding historical writing.

⭐I certainly learned some about the complications of Turkish policies and government, but this book is quite detailed about political parties and what they stood for etc. It is overly focused on the economy and keeps bringing up these issues almost to a fault. If you want an interesting book on Turkish History in the Modern World, I would encourage you to keep looking!

⭐This book was dry, and the way it was organized often left me confused. I picked it out to do some background reading on Turkey before traveling there … It was not good for that.

⭐A thorough course of Turkish history, written in a non-fiction fashion – as it should be. This is not your book if all you are looking for is historical fiction writing, be it heroic or sardonic.Written by Zurcher, one of the leading Turkologs, the material is a reference book that should be part of the library of those interested in history of modern Turkey.

⭐No page numbers listed in kindle version, only location of book which makes it unnecessarily tedious to get to specific locations. For example page 97 would be location 1951 of 8626 in kindle, This is fine for the beginning of each chapter but individual pages throughout the book I can only guess at.

⭐Erik-Jan Zürcher’s “Turkey: A modern history” provides a concise and detailed telling of the most political events which lead from the late Ottoman Empire to today’s AKP ruled the Turkish Nation. After reading the book, you can expect to have basic knowledge of the timeline, the relevant figures of politics, the guiding principles as well as key knowledge of Turkish society.Unfortunately, though, even the 2017 published 4th edition comes with a handful of drawbacks which range from annoying technical flaws to more questionable content issues. The first category could have easily been prevented with thorough proofreading, as at least the Kindle edition suffers from regular typos.Additionally, many sentences are repeated throughout the book. As this is understandable to give the reader reminders about previously explained knowledge — the following quote is, I am sorry, just pure laziness of the author or editor. “Some 260,000 people died from diseases or hunger. As many as 260,000 were killed or died of disease and starvation [sic]” (p.122).More confusingly, Zürcher decided to use translated party names and acronyms. Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi becomes RPP, Adalet Partisi becomes JP, etc.This choice makes no sense — and Zürcher doesn’t bother justifying it. Especially for parties still active today, the way of writing bothers. Zürcher seemed to have recognized it too, as after some point the acronyms are arbitrarily not translated anymore — and RPP suddenly becomes CHP, etc.As for content, besides a rather weak thread and guiding through the chapters (going back and forth through chronologies and subjects) Zürcher shows a clear miss- or not-understanding of abstract economical or legal basic knowledge.For example: “[The Turkish government] took the so-called ‘7 September Decisions’ of 1946. Essentially, these meant a devaluation of the Turkish lira by 120 per cent […] and a number of liberalizing measures aimed at integrating the Turkish economy into the world economy.” (p.293)You don’t need to be an expert in macroeconomy to understand that a devaluation of 120% is logically impossible, assuming positive prices — which is certainly the case for currency. Remember, this is the fourth edition and not a preprint.Zürcher proves among other examples his struggle with economic principles by wrongly setting mercantilism identical with capitalism, or in a more modern context his painstaking explanation of dropped credit ratings. “Two American firms whose job it was to determine the credit ratings of countries and firms and whose judgment the international banks generally followed, both lowered their rating for Turkey twice in succession, down from ‘investment grade’ to ‘risky’.” (p.429).On the other hand, and in contrast to this careful explanation of how credit rating agencies apparently work, Zürcher doesn’t bother to explain concepts that are in my eyes crucial to understand the Turkish political system.It is at no point explained that the parliament, as a legacy of the Kemalist state, never consisted of more than one chamber — which obviously emphasizes “a winner (coalition) takes it all” compared to bicameral parliament consisting for example of a Congress and a Senate (which almost all western democracies feature). To Zürcher, this seems too abstract, and he prefers to summarize the whole issue as “particularities of the Turkish electoral system” (which it is definitely not) or even as “a political culture in which a simple majority in parliament was supposed to represent the will of the nation as a whole.” (p. 466).To me, it mostly shows that despite the beautiful, detailed telling of “happenings” in Turkey on the path of today’s republic, Zürcher weakness clearly lies in abstract economical, political, or legal concepts. Historically, for example, Zürcher compares the Grey Wolves to the SS in the early Third Reich, as they both brought right nationalist violence on the streets and universities — thereby he shows that he confuses the SS with a different German infamous organization, the SA, which acted as he claims. These seem like details, I agree — but these careless and unnecessary explanations slowly undermine my trust in the care and seriousness the author put in his work. I don’t understand why he didn’t cooperate with fellows who are more able in these specific subjects — rather than sacrificing trustworthiness by writing obvious mistakes.And why is this trustworthiness crucial? Because Zürcher decided to write a book without more than anecdotal references. The footnotes are more about providing more insights (which I don’t understand why he didn’t just add them in the text itself), selected quotes, sources, or bits of advice for further reading rather than structured and transparent references for his claims.As a summary, if you aim to get a detailed picture of how Turkey became a republic and went on from there — without wanting or requiring more broad and generalizing assistance, I still recommend the book. But if your goal is a deeper understanding of the reasons, mechanisms, interpretations of the political system — or wider, if the goal is to get a more broad view of the cultural, religious, and economic aspects, don’t expect too much of it.If you decide to read it, please take it with a lot of critical thinking.

⭐Professor Zürcher gives a seamless, complete, accurate and critical view of Turkey since the Ottoman Empire desintegration until the very end of the 20th century.Easy to read, with a lot of references and an extremely complete commented bibliography at the end.The book does what it says on the cover – it’s a history of modern Turkey. It’s academic in approach and the writing style is as would be expected for that. I was hoping for something a little lighter, I suppose, that included a few photographs, perhaps!

⭐arrived right on time and really as new!

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