Turkey

Norman Stone is, of course, well known for his excellent studies on Russian and European history written in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as for his strong and controversial views on many aspects of recent European and world history. Since 1997 he has held a chair of international relations at the University of Bilkent in Ankara, and he has now marked his long association with Turkey by writing an overview history of the country for a general readership. His book gives an overview of the history of the Turks from their first experience with statehood in Central Asia in the sixth century to the contemporary Republic of Turkey. As it is a ‘Short History’ (192 pages all told), this means that the history of Turkey and the Turks has been painted with very broad strokes. Most of the text (chs. 2–8) concerns the Ottoman Empire—its rise, flowering and decline. The nearly ninety years of the history of the republic take up a mere nine pages at the end. This is not the only problem, however. The book is deeply unsatisfactory for more fundamental reasons than lack of space

Ancient history · Audience measurement · Economic history · Empire · Ottoman empire · Political science · Politics · Russian history · The Republic · Theology · World history · Classics · History · Law · Ottoman Empire History and Society · Philosophy · Post-Soviet Geopolitical Dynamics · Turkey's Politics and Society