Conversations with journalists, academics and writers on Turkey and its region. New episode every two weeks.
Episodes
4 days ago
4 days ago
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 era.
Thursday Dec 12, 2024
Thursday Dec 12, 2024
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.
Tuesday Nov 19, 2024
Tuesday Nov 19, 2024
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. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.
Tuesday Nov 05, 2024
Tuesday Nov 05, 2024
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 Arabia, Syria and others.
Become a member on Patreon or Substack to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.
Tuesday Oct 22, 2024
Tuesday Oct 22, 2024
Orçun Selçuk on "The Authoritarian Divide: Populism, Propaganda, and Polarization" (University of Notre Dame Press). The book compares Turkey under Erdoğan, Venezuela under Chávez and Ecuador under Correa, showing that Turkey's experience can be more usefully compared with Latin American examples than cases of right-wing populism in Europe or Islamism in the Middle East.
Tuesday Oct 08, 2024
Tuesday Oct 08, 2024
Ezgi Başaran on "The New Spirit of Islamism: Interactions Between the AKP, Ennahda and the Muslim Brotherhood" (IB Tauris). The book looks at the aspirations of Islamist actors in Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia from 2011 to 2013, seeking to understand how they viewed each other and whether they prioritised pragmatism or religious ideology.
Tuesday Sep 24, 2024
Tuesday Sep 24, 2024
Samim Akgönül, director of the Department of Turkish Studies at the University of Strasbourg, on "One Hundred Years of Greek-Turkish Relations: The Human Dimension of an Ongoing Conflict" (Edinburgh University Press)
Become a member on Patreon or Substack to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.
Tuesday Sep 10, 2024
Tuesday Sep 10, 2024
Çağdaş Üngör discusses her recent articles "A Bridge No More? Turkiye’s Geopolitical Significance in the 21st Century" in the journal Survival and "A 'Bridge' Pushed to the Periphery? Turkey's Geopolitical Significance in the Asia-Pacific Century" in Turkish Studies.
Become a member on Patreon or Substack to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.
Tuesday Aug 27, 2024
Tuesday Aug 27, 2024
Karabekir Akkoyunlu, Lecturer in Politics and International Studies at SOAS, on "Guardianship and Democracy in Iran and Turkey: Tutelary Consolidation, Popular Contestation" (Edinburgh University Press).
Become a member on Patreon or Substack to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.
Tuesday Aug 13, 2024
Tuesday Aug 13, 2024
Eugene Rogan on "The Damascus Events: The 1860 Massacre and the Destruction of the Old Ottoman World" (Allen Lane). The book examines how in July 1860 Damascus exploded in communal violence when a mostly Muslim crowd tried to exterminate the Christian community, after hundreds of years of relative peace and coexistence.
Become a member on Patreon or Substack to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.
Tuesday Jul 30, 2024
Tuesday Jul 30, 2024
Umit Kurt on "The Armenians of Aintab: The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province" (Harvard University Press). The book draws on archival sources, memoirs, personal papers, oral accounts and property liquidation records to detail the dispossession of Antep's Armenian community and the transfer of their wealth to Ottoman and later Turkish Muslim elites.
Tuesday Jul 16, 2024
Tuesday Jul 16, 2024
Ozge Samanci on her graphic novel “Evil Eyes Sea” (Uncivilized Books). The semi-autobiographical story is a murder mystery centred on a group of students at Istanbul's Boğaziçi University in the 1990s. It follows up from her highly successful graphic novel “Dare to Disappoint”.
Become a member on Patreon or Substack to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.
Tuesday Jul 02, 2024
Tuesday Jul 02, 2024
Sami Kent on “The Endless Country: A Personal Journey Through Turkey’s First Hundred Years” (Picador). The book paints a portrait of Turkey by combining accounts of key events with Sami’s personal reflections on growing up learning about his paternal homeland from afar, before coming to work in the country as a journalist.
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.
Tuesday Jun 18, 2024
Tuesday Jun 18, 2024
Istanbul-based photojournalist Bradley Secker discusses his work on migration, LGBT+ asylum seekers in the Middle East and Europe, the difficulties of practicing journalism in Turkey and the broader state of photojournalism.
Tuesday Jun 04, 2024
Tuesday Jun 04, 2024
Bilge Yesil on “Talking Back to the West: How Turkey Uses Counter-Hegemony to Reshape the Global Communication Order” (University of Illinois Press). The book examines how Erdogan's regime has mobilised English-language media to counter foreign criticism and project Turkey as a rising power opposed to Western imperialism, supposedly giving a voice to oppressed Muslims around the world.
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.
Tuesday May 21, 2024
Tuesday May 21, 2024
Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky on “Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State” (Stanford University Press). The book explores the forced migration from the Russian Empire of around one million Muslims, who settled in the Ottoman Empire between the 1850s and World War One.
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Patreon members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.
Tuesday May 07, 2024
Tuesday May 07, 2024
Emre Toros on “Electoral Integrity in Turkey” (Edinburgh University Press). The book weighs up the country's democratic credentials after over two decades of rule by Erdogan's party, painting an ambivalent picture combining both optimism and pessimism.
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Patreon members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.
Tuesday Apr 23, 2024
Tuesday Apr 23, 2024
Christopher Phillips on “Battleground: Ten Conflicts that Explain the New Middle East” (Yale University Press). The conversation explores the region's shifting rivalries, as well as how Turkey’s push for greater influence in Syria, Iraq and Libya has impacted its ties with other ambitious powers.
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Patreon members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.
Tuesday Apr 09, 2024
Tuesday Apr 09, 2024
Seda Demiralp on what the recent local election results mean for Turkish politics. The conversation takes in what the main opposition CHP did right, what the ruling AKP did wrong, the emerging challenge to Erdogan posed by the Yeniden Refah Party, and the performance of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party.
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Patreon members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.
Tuesday Mar 26, 2024
Tuesday Mar 26, 2024
Andrew Finkel, a veteran journalist based in Turkey for decades, on his debut novel “The Adventure of the Second Wife: The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and the Ottoman Sultan” (Even Keel Press). It is a sprawling story exploring the mystery of Abdulhamid II’s obsession with Sherlock Holmes.
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk. Patreon members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.