What role does Islam play in Turkish public life?
Turkey is both a Muslim-majority country and an avowed secular state. Reconciling these two identities has proven surprisingly complicated. While Turkey lays claim to serving as a cultural ambassador between faiths in a post-9/11 world,...
What sort of political system does Turkey have?
In order to even begin membership negotiations with the European Union, Turkey, like other candidates, had to demonstrate that its economy was capable of integrating with the free markets of the member states and that its...
Why this book?
The method of this book is to investigate a complex subject succinctly by posing a series of questions that beg answers that beget more questions. It is hard to squeeze an introduction into such a scheme unless the very first question...
What sort of future does Turkey face?
Since this is the last question, I allow myself the luxury of answering it obliquely, or at the very least with an anecdote or two. In 2007 I returned to Turkey after an absence of a year....
Where does Turkey fit into the world?
A map is the obvious place to see where Turkey fits in the world. It lies at the intersection of several overlapping regions—the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Middle and Near East, and the Eastern Mediterranean. However, the...
Who were the Ottomans and what is their relation to modern Turkey?
Today’s Turkish Republic was previously part of an empire ruled over by the Ottoman dynasty. The word “Ottoman” is a Latin transcription of the Arabic for Osman, the reputed founder of the...
What is Turkey’s economic potential . . . ?
Turkey comfortably takes its place at G20 summits. It is, according to most reckonings of nominal GDP, the seventeenth largest economy in the world and the eighth largest and fastest growing in Europe. Istanbul alone...
