Turkey Books

1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West

Roger Crowley

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Hyperion Amazon Marketplace: 51 new & used starting at $4.98

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> Turkey
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> General
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Pushed my buttons. 3 out of 5 stars.
6 of 13 people found this review helpful.

I'll give this book 3 stars out of charity, and because it may succeed as a work of popular history; indeed, most readers will be satisfied with it.

I can't write an exhaustive review, because I quit reading at p.32,when Crowley says that "the Ottomans ruled their subjects with a light hand. . . . No attempts were made to convert Christians . . ." etc. Ask anyone who's lived under Ottoman rule,if you can still find one of these venerable folk, or talk to their descendants. You'll get a different picture of the situation. Crowley himself describes some of the horrors of the siege, inflicted by these "tolerant" Muslims.

It is true that some Ottoman officials developed a liberal laissez-faire attitude toward the Christians--either out of Levantine indolence or practical intelligence: why harass honest and industrious people? Plus, they pay taxes through the nose. And even Sultan Mehmed II was lenient towards the Christians once he had established his rule. Still, the many horrors remain.

If I'd been at home while reading this book, I would have thrown it across the room. As it was, I was in the car and merely commented on the nonsense to my companions.

Gentle reader, if you really want to learn about the Fall of Constaninople, read Runciman, or Sir Edwin Pears, if you can find his book. Also, the translations of the chronicles of the time.

Editorial Review:

Now in trade paperback, a gripping exploration of the fall of Constantinople and its connection to the world we live in today

The fall of Constantinople in 1453 signaled a shift in history, and the end of the Byzantium Empire. Roger Crowley’s readable and comprehensive account of the battle between Mehmed II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and Constantine XI, the 57th emperor of Byzantium, illuminates the period in history that was a precursor to the current jihad between the West and the Middle East.

Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire

Judith Herrin

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Princeton University Press Amazon Marketplace: 44 new & used starting at $15.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Ancient -> Greece
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> Turkey
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Greece -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Byzantium. The name evokes grandeur and exoticism--gold, cunning, and complexity. In this unique book, Judith Herrin unveils the riches of a quite different civilization. Avoiding a standard chronological account of the Byzantine Empire's millennium--long history, she identifies the fundamental questions about Byzantium--what it was, and what special significance it holds for us today.

Bringing the latest scholarship to a general audience in accessible prose, Herrin focuses each short chapter around a representative theme, event, monument, or historical figure, and examines it within the full sweep of Byzantine history--from the foundation of Constantinople, the magnificent capital city built by Constantine the Great, to its capture by the Ottoman Turks.

She argues that Byzantium's crucial role as the eastern defender of Christendom against Muslim expansion during the early Middle Ages made Europe--and the modern Western world--possible. Herrin captivates us with her discussions of all facets of Byzantine culture and society. She walks us through the complex ceremonies of the imperial court. She describes the transcendent beauty and power of the church of Hagia Sophia, as well as chariot races, monastic spirituality, diplomacy, and literature. She reveals the fascinating worlds of military usurpers and ascetics, eunuchs and courtesans, and artisans who fashioned the silks, icons, ivories, and mosaics so readily associated with Byzantine art.

An innovative history written by one of our foremost scholars, Byzantium reveals this great civilization's rise to military and cultural supremacy, its spectacular destruction by the Fourth Crusade, and its revival and final conquest in 1453.

Crescent and Star [Revised Edition]: Turkey Between Two Worlds

Stephen Kinzer

Amazon Price: $10.88 List Price: $16.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Amazon Marketplace: 43 new & used starting at $7.89

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> Turkey
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> General
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 85 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Talk, talk talkin' sappy talk 1 out of 5 stars.
10 of 16 people found this review helpful.

What would you think of a foreign correspondent in America who wrote about the politics of the 1990s without exploring the influence of Christianity? New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer has written about Turkey in the `90s without any effort to take account of Islam.

America is a secular state with a Christian society. Turkey is a secular state with a Muslim society. If the object of your sermon -- "Crescent and Star" is a sermon not an analysis -- is to promote democracy, then Christianity is not too much of a problem. There are Christian democracies. But there are not any Muslim democracies, and it must be asked, is that a consequence or an accident?

Kinzer doesn't ask. He spends chapter after chapter on the Kurds, victims of a genocide in the `90s that most of the world chose not to see. Some pages on women, a few on economics. Several chapters on the army, which runs the country as a disguised military dictatorship. Page after page about the ineffectual political system and corrupt parties.

Kinzer is capable of breathtakingly stupid writing. My favorite example is his description of the father of the republic, Kemal Ataturk: "Ataturk and his comrades came to think of themselves as righteous crusaders." I doubt any Turk ever thought of himself as any kind of crusader.

Without providing the slightest evidence, Kinzer opines: "Many devout Muslims . . . want to cooperate with secularists in building an open, tolerant nation." But the only political act tied to Islam in the book describes how Turkish Hezballah (Party of Allah) subjected Konca Kuris, a Muslim woman "who had written many articles describing Islam as a gentle, tolerant faith that demanded equality for women" to "unspeakable tortures," which they videotaped for the enjoyment and political/religious edification of Turkish Muslims.

"Crescent and Star" was finished shortly before Sept. 11, 2001, but even then anyone with eyes could see that tolerant Islam was losing ground. Even then, the secular, corrupt political establishment had made a bargain with expansionist Muslims (the Welfare Party) to bring them into the government. Readers of historical experience are likely to be reminded of how the conservatives in Germany thought they could tame Hitlerism by bringing it into the government.

Turkey would be another Iran now if the secular army had not stepped in to force the Welfarist prime minister Erbakan out. Kinzer gets half of it, writing that "the worst legacy of Erbakan's disastrous year in power was that it convinced the army that Turks were still not ready for democracy."

But having just stated that Turks were unable to handle democracy, Kinzer also says Turks are "a people who are quite mature enough to deal with the challenge of freedom."

Kinzer adores Turkey and Turkishness. It is not clear whether he is blinded by love or just a silly twit.

Editorial Review:

“A sharp, spirited appreciation of where Turkey stands now, and where it may head.” —Carlin Romano, The Philadelphia Inquirer In the first edition of this widely praised book, Stephen Kinzer made the convincing claim that Turkey was the country to watch—poised between Europe and Asia, between the glories of its Ottoman past and its hopes for a democratic future, between the dominance of its army and the needs of its civilian citizens, between its secular expectations and its Muslim traditions. In this newly revised edition, he adds much important new information on the many exciting transformations in Turkey’s government and politics that have kept it in the headlines, and also shows how recent developments in both American and European policies (and not only the war in Iraq) have affected this unique and perplexing nation.

Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire

Caroline Finkel

Amazon Price: $25.55 List Price: $35.00 Usually ships in 11 to 14 days By: Basic Books Amazon Marketplace: 27 new & used starting at $3.85

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> Turkey
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> General
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

According to the Ottoman chronicles, the first sultan, Osman, had a dream in which a tree emerged fully formed from his navel "and its shade compassed the world"-symbolizing the vast empire he and his descendants were destined to forge. His vision was soon realized: At its height, the Ottoman realm extended from Hungary to the Persian Gulf, from North Africa to the Caucasus. The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and most influential empires in world history. For centuries, Europe watched with fear as the Ottomans steadily advanced their rule across the Balkans. Yet travelers and merchants were irresistibly drawn toward Ottoman lands by their fascination with the Orient and the lure of profit. Although it survived for over six centuries, the history of the Ottoman Empire is too often colored by the memory of its bloody final throes. In this magisterial work Caroline Finkel lucidly recounts the epic story of the Ottoman Empire from its origins in the thirteenth century through its destruction on the battlefields of World War I.

Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire

Jason Goodwin

Amazon Price: $11.56 List Price: $17.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Picador Amazon Marketplace: 53 new & used starting at $7.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> Turkey
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Eastern
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

delightful, fascinating, and deep 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This book offers a stark contrast to Kinross' The Ottoman Centuries. Kinross' book is dry, stuffily pedantic, and laden with the details of obscure territorial skirmishes. While I learned the outlines of Ottoman history in Kinross, it was this book that gave me a true flavor for that vanished world - who the people were, why they acted the way they did, and how things appeared in the context of the time. It is a dazzling and confidently erudite tour of life then (without a whiff of pretension), and I was utterly engrossed from the minute I opened the book. Indeed, I was not intending to read this now, but I simply could not put it down when I looked at it out of curiosity.

This is not conventional history, but a flowing narrative that skips around in time; the subject matter of the chapters are organized as dense essays on military affairs, the populations within the Empire, and governance practices. The author went directly to the original sources of memoirs, diplomatic correspondence, and military communiques, always good for the beautiful, quirky anecdote. Many readers did not like this loose style, but I thought it made the book extremely fun and readable and vivid. Nonetheless, without Kinross, this would have been a far more difficult read and perhaps at many points incomprehensible. As such, the books are complementary and can be read together at great profit. But this book is a genuine literary masterpiece that left me in awe of the author's talent.

The story is incredible: from a small band of tough nomads in the steppes of Asia, several outstanding leaders created the first truly professional army since the Roman age. To the aristocratic knights in Europe - bound by chivalric conventions and a cumbersome military apparatus with untrustworthy mercenaries - the Turks appeared as a terrifying and unstoppable force of fierce and disciplined warriors. For 200 years, they advanced into the heart of Europe and conquered large portions of Asia Minor and North Africa with dreams of world domination that appeared all too credible to contemporary observers. The Ottomans also created a multi-ethnic society that for the times was tolerant and inclusive, did not seek to convert its subjects (they could tax non-Muslims afterall), and was more or less a meritocracy based on ability more than privilege.

Unfortunately, once the empiric expansion stopped, most of its virtues became deadly liabilities. During the Renaissance, the Ottoman Empire abruptly stalled and then became famously corrupt and decadent, after a series of leaders who can only be called military geniuses. Their administrative skills never advanced beyond the phenomenally innovative organization of military camps to reinvent the governance of Ottoman society. First, without the pillage income from continual conquest, revenues needed to be raised to pay the standing army. The responsibility for this fell to regional governors, who preyed upon local residents, severely undermining the authority of the state while creating a kind of aristocracy of privilege for themselves (and hence mediocrity). Second, the elite Janisseries - like the Praetorian guard of the Romans - realized the true extent of their power, and became corrupted and dangerous power brokers in Istanbul. Third, the command power of the Sultan, so useful in war, blocked the diffusion of power to a professional administrative caste, which remained under-developed into the 19th C. Effective pashas came and went, often strangled by the bowstring for failure, but they did not establish schools to train their successors. Fourth, the medieval mentality - an acceptance of fate that enabled Ottoman warriors to rush into battle with the fearlessness of religious true believers - gradually gave way to personal caution, as exemplified by the defensive behavior of its leaders. Fifth, the quality of the hereditary monarchic line declined after Suleyman the Magnificent, in large part because the Sultan's sons were more of less imprisoned in the Harem - a parallel universe of pleasure and bizarre political machination - rather than gaining experience as governors of provinces (as they had in the empire's early cneturies). Interestingly, none of the above issues became dead end problems in Europe, whose societies were evolving in some ways to explicitly to resolve them. Finally, the forces of nationalism created centrifugal forces that doomed the ancient mores that made such a vast, eclectic society possible, which I believe still stands as an example towards which we might strive in new ways in the current global society that is in formation.

This is one of those books that can fill the reader with wonder at the sweep of history and human possibility. It has turned my interest in Turkish history into an inspiration that will sustain me for the rest of my life. Recommended with the greatest enthusiasm. Indeed, contemporary Turkey remains one of the most important political experiments on the planet in our current crisis of civilization. It is astonishing that so few Americans understand this.

Editorial Review:

For six hundred years, the Ottoman Empire swelled and declined. Islamic, martial, civilized, and tolerant, it advanced in three centuries from the dusty foothills of Anatolia to rule on the Danube and the Nile; at its height, Indian rajahs and the kings of France beseeched the empire's aid. In its last three hundred years the empire seemed ready to collapse, a prodigy of survival and decay. In this striking evocation of the empire's power, Jason Goodwin explores how the Ottomans rose and how, against all odds, they lingered on. In doing so, he also offers a long look back to the origins of problems that plague present-day Kosovars and Serbs.

A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility

Taner Akcam

Amazon Price: $11.56 List Price: $17.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Holt Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 49 new & used starting at $9.08

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> Armenia
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> Turkey
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Eastern

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

“The definitive account of the organized destruction of the Ottoman Armenians . . . No future discussion of the history will be able to ignore this brilliant book.”—Orhan Pamuk

 

Beginning in 1915, under the cover of a world war, some one million Armenians were killed through starvation, forced marches, and mass acts of slaughter. Although Armenians and the judgment of history have long held the Ottoman powers responsible for genocide, modern Turkey has rejected any such claim.

 

Now, in a pioneering work of excavation, Turkish historian Taner Akçam has made unprecedented use of Ottoman and other sources—military and court records, parliamentary minutes, letters, and eyewitness reports—to produce a scrupulous account of Ottoman culpability. Tracing the causes of the mass destruction, Akçam reconstructs its planning and implementation by the departments of state, the military, and the ruling political parties, and he probes the multiple failures to bring the perpetrators to justice.

 

As the topic of the Armenian genocide provokes ever-greater passion and controversy around the world, Akçam’s work has only become more important and relevant. Beyond its timeliness, however, A Shameful Act is sure to take its lasting place as a classic and necessary work on the subject.

The Siege of Vienna: The Last Great Trial Between Cross & Crescent

John Stoye

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Pegasus Books Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $7.25

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> Turkey
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Austria
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Hungary

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"In his splendid study The Siege of Vienna, the Oxford historian John Stoye provides a detailed account of the intricate machinations between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans. Mr. Stoye's description of the siege itself is masterly. He seems to know every inch of ground, every earthwork and fortification around the Imperial City, and he follows the action meticulously."-The Wall Street Journal

"Worthy of the pen of Herodotus. . . . It is a measure of the fascination of Mr. Stoye's subject that one should think of comparing his treatment of it with the work of the greatest historians."-The Times Literary Supplement

"John Stoye is the master of every aspect of his subject."-Daily Telegraph

The siege of Vienna in 1683 was one of the turning points in European history. So great was its impact that countries normally jealous and hostile sank their differences to throw back the armies of Islam and their savage Tartar allies.

The consequences of defeat were momentous: The Ottomans lost half of their European territories, which led to the final collapse of their empire, and the Habsburgs turned their attention from France and the Rhine frontier to the rich pickings of the Balkans. That hot September day in 1683 witnessed the last great trial of strength between the East and the West-and opened an epoch in European history that lasted until the First World War.

John Stoye, the author of several books on European history, is a fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he lives.

Ataturk: The Biography of the founder of Modern Turkey

Andrew Mango

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Overlook TP Amazon Marketplace: 50 new & used starting at $11.32

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Authors
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 39 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

This has GOT to be complete 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The author does a fine job in what is obviously a very thoroughly-researched and well-written work. The main thing I liked about this book is that it didn't just discuss a chronology of Ataturk's career but also looked into the ideas and influences which molded the future leader of the Turkish Republic. A little long at places, the book nevertheless makes sure the context of developments is known to the reader as well as the events themselves. While not destined to be a favorite book of mine I can certainly recommend it as a great work in this field of history.

Editorial Review:

In this major new biography of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and the first to appear in English based on Turkish sources, Andrew Mango strips away the myth, to show the complexities of one of the most visionary, influential, and enigmatic statesmen of the century. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was virtually unknown until 1919, when he took the lead in thwarting the victorious Allies' plan to partition the Turkish core of the Ottoman Empire. He divided the Allies, defeated the last Sultan, and secured the territory of the Turkish national state, becoming the first president of the new republic in 1923, fast creating his own legend.

Andrew Mango's revealing portrait of Atatürk throws light on matters of great importance today-resurgent nationalism, religious fundamentalism, and the reality of democracy.

The Fall of Constantinople 1453 (Canto)

Steven Runciman

Amazon Price: $17.99 List Price: $19.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Cambridge University Press Amazon Marketplace: 60 new & used starting at $5.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> Turkey
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Greece -> General
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Greece -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A sublime account of the demise of the "Greek emperor" and the fall of his city 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Exceedingly well written and utterly fascinating, Sir James Stevenson Runciman's classic account of the siege and fall of Constantinople manages to be thoroughly academically sound and highly entertaining at the same time. Steven Runciman doesn't just deliver the dry facts, which would be alright, no, he tells the story, which is much better. And he does it without forefeiting historical accuracy, and, blessedly, without drawing any politically motivated parallels to "modern" conflicts, be they religious, or political, or both.
This is one of the finest historical accounts I have ever read, and I recommend it 100%. It may be over 40 years old, but it is still unrivalled, the single greatest work on the subject in the English language. Only Roger Crowley's "Constantinople" comes close.

Editorial Review:

This classic account shows how the fall of Constantinople in May 1453, after a siege of several weeks, came as a bitter shock to Western Christendom. The city's plight had been neglected, and negligible help was sent in this crisis. To the Turks, victory not only brought a new imperial capital, but guaranteed that their empire would last. To the Greeks, the conquest meant the end of the civilisation of Byzantium, and led to the exodus of scholars stimulating the tremendous expansion of Greek studies in the European Renaissance.

Storey's Guide to Raising Turkeys: Breeds, Care, Health

Leonard Mercia

Amazon Price: $12.89 List Price: $18.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Storey Publishing, LLC Amazon Marketplace: 43 new & used starting at $10.39

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> Turkey
Subjects -> Professional & Technical -> Professional Science -> Agricultural Sciences -> Animal Husbandry -> General AAS
Subjects -> Professional & Technical -> Professional Science -> Agricultural Sciences -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

For 17 years readers have turned to Storey Books for advice on raising animals. Our Modern Way series of six books has sold more than 1,000,000 copies. In an effort to provide readers with the best how-to animal books on the market we are completely updating all six Modern Way titles and reintroducing them as part of our Guide to Raising series.

Written by experts, these guides give novice and experienced livestock farmers all they need to know to successfully keep and profit from animals. Each book includes information on selection, housing, space requirements, breeding and birthing techniques, feeding, behavior, and health concerns and remedies for illness. The books also address the business of raising animals -- processing meat, milk, eggs, and more. The authors were chosen not only for their expertise but also for their ability to explain the ins and outs of animal husbandry in an inviting and authoritative manner.

Whether readers are ready to start an entire herd or flock or are considering purchasing their first animal, Storey's Guide to Raising series offers vital information; each book is an indispensable reference.