Turkey History

Iraq will continue to be a major issue and involvement for the United States into the foreseeable future says William R. Polk, former member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Council and professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Chicago. Iraq sits on the world’s largest supply of oil, and with the world’s energy requirements continuously rising, Iraq will play an ongoing role in the global economy and the political environment throughout the Gulf region and the Middle East.

The beginning of modern Europe was a time of confusion, excitement, suspicion, hope, despair, and ideas. It was a time of a lot of change spread out over just a few hundred years, but the end result was a completely different world than the one that had come before it. This audiobook includes details of the transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern era, where Europe saw significant shifts across the continent in phases.

Including an introduction read by the author, Max Hastings. 'A superb account of journalists, soldiers and the experience of modern battle, written by one of the greatest war reporters of our time' – Robert Harris, author of An Officer and a Spy ‘Gripping and compulsively readable’ –...

In the wake of the September 11 attacks and the US-led invasion of Iraq, Suzy Hansen, who grew up in an insular conservative town in New Jersey, was enjoying early success as a journalist for a high-profile New York newspaper. Increasingly, though, the disconnect between the chaos of world events and the response at home took on pressing urgency for her. Seeking to understand the Muslim world that had been reduced to scaremongering headlines, she moved to Istanbul.

In 1921 a small group of self-appointed patriots set out to avenge the deaths of almost one million victims of the Armenian Genocide. They named their operation Nemesis after the Greek goddess of retribution. Over several years the men tracked down and assassinated former Turkish leaders. The story of this secret operation has never been fully told until now.

From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the 18th century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. In this path-breaking audiobook, Noel Malcolm ranges through these vital centuries of East-West interaction, studying all the ways in which thinkers in the West interpreted the Ottoman Empire as a political phenomenon - and Islam as a political religion.

The destruction of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire in 1915-16 was the greatest atrocity of World War I. Around one million Armenians were killed, and the survivors were scattered across the world. Although it is now a century old, the issue of what most of the world calls the Armenian Genocide of 1915 is still a live and divisive issue that mobilizes Armenians across the world, shapes the identity and politics of modern Turkey, and has consumed the attention of U.S. politicians for years.

Sultan Mehmet II, known to his countrymen as -the Conqueror- and to much of Europe as -the Terror of the World,- was once Europe's most feared and powerful ruler. Now, Turkey's most beloved American scholar, John Freely, brings to life this charismatic hero of one of the richest histories in the world. Mehmet reigned for thirty years, during which time his armies extended the borders of his empire halfway across Asia Minor and as far into Europe as Hungary and Italy.

In the wake of taking Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire would spend the next few centuries expanding its size, power, and influence, bumping up against Eastern Europe and becoming one of the world’s most important geopolitical players. It would take repeated efforts by various European coalitions to prevent a complete Ottoman takeover of the continent, and one of the most important battles among those efforts took place at Vienna in 1529.

What can the United States do to help realize its dream of a peaceful, democratic Middle East? Stephen Kinzer offers a surprising answer in this paradigm-shifting book. Two countries in the region, he argues, are America's logical partners in the 21st century: Turkey and Iran.

Istanbul, 1537. The greatest of the Ottoman Sultans is at his personal apogee and the pinnacle of world power. With both Christianity and Islam riven by schism, he is mighty enough to maul different enemies in different hemispheres at the same time. But a terrible crisis is building that will rip Suleyman’s family apart as his beloved wife Hurrem wages pitiless war against his first-born son, Mustafa, and the boy’s mother Mahidevran.

Travailleur acharné, charmeur et bluffeur, Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) a réalisé une étonnante marche au pouvoir : en 1923, il met fin au sultanat ottoman, proclame la république de Turquie et en devient le premier président. Ayant vaincu l’occupant allié après la Première Guerre mondiale, Atatürk impose à son pays des réformes radicales – occidentalisation, laïcité, droit de vote des femmes. Fondateur de la Turquie moderne et véritable mythe, il reste au centre des aspirations, des contradictions et des déchirements du pays.

Why do Muslim-majority countries exhibit high levels of authoritarianism and low levels of socioeconomic development in comparison to world averages? Ahmet T. Kuru criticizes explanations that point to Islam as the cause of this disparity, because Muslims were philosophically and socioeconomically more developed than Western Europeans between the 9th and 12th centuries. Nor was Western colonialism the cause: Muslims had already suffered political and socioeconomic problems when colonization began.

From the taking of the holy city of Jerusalem in the 7th century AD by Caliph Umar, to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following the end of World War I, Christian popes, emperors and kings, and Muslim caliphs and sultans were locked in a 1300-year battle for political, military, ideological, economic and religious supremacy. The House of War offers a wide, sweeping narrative, encompassing the broad historical and religious context of this period, while focussing on some of the key, pivotal sieges and battles, and on the protagonists, political and military.

One of the world’s greatest conquerors that ever was, Alexander the Great never lost a battle and built one of the largest empires. Discover his military brilliance and what lead to his early death. After listening to this audiobook, in an hour or so, you will know everything about the life and legacy of Alexander the Great!

It is believed that the Circassians—the English translation of the Turkish term Cherkess—emerged as a discrete society or entity around the 10th century CE, although there are references to them before this. In fact, the Circassians are believed to be the oldest indigenous people of the North Caucasus and self-identified as Adyghe. Historians believe the first settlers appeared some 300,000 years ago. Nevertheless, the history and culture of Circassia and the Circassians is largely unknown in the English-speaking and wider world outside Central Asia and the Caucasus.

The fall of Constantinople in 1453 marked a number of significant historical turning points. It saw the end of the last vestige of the Roman Empire, which had been founded more than 1,400 years before, and marked the beginning of a period of dominance for the growing Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, this moment marked the end of the Middle Ages in Europe and the beginning of the Renaissance, as the fall of Constantinople was directly linked to both these events.

Everyone has heard of Erdogan: Turkey’s bullish, mercurial president is the original postmodern populist. Around the world, other strongmen are now following the path that he has blazed. For the first time, Erdogan Rising tells the inside story of how a democracy on the fringe of Europe has succumbed to dictatorship. Hannah Lucinda Smith, Turkey correspondent with The Times of London, has witnessed all that has befallen Turkey and the wider region since the onset of the Arab Spring.

Ancient Turkey was a land of myth and mystery, but its secrets are slowly being uncovered. Find out about the legendary cultures that left their mark on this unique region, and discover which stories are fact and which are fiction. The history of ancient Turkey is important since it gives insight into what Anatolia was like before the Roman and Byzantine Empires, but much of the information has been buried by time.

In the heart of the Ottoman Empire as World War I rages, Stepan Miskjian's world becomes undone. He is separated from his family as they are swept up in the government's mass deportation of Armenians into internment camps. Gradually realizing the unthinkable - that they are all being driven to their deaths - he fights, through starvation and thirst, not to lose hope.