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Turkey Book Talk

William Armstrong

Conversations with journalists, academics and writers on Turkey and its region. New episode every two weeks.

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20 episodes
fortnightly
Avg 37 min
English

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#252
August 18 · 35 min
Işılay Gürsu on archaeology and public perceptions in Turkey
Işılay Gürsu on “Public Dialogues in Archaeology: New Methodologies from Turkey” (Bloomsbury Academic). The book explores the Turkish public's perception and understanding of the country's rich archaeological heritage. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#251
August 4 · 26 min
Onur İnal on the rise of late Ottoman İzmir
Onur İnal on “Gateway to the Mediterranean: An Environmental History of Late Ottoman Izmir” (Cambridge University Press). The book shows how the cosmopolitan coastal city of Izmir flourished in the 19th century to become a major link between the Ottoman Empire, Europe and the rest of the world. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#250
July 21 · 38 min
Sinem Adar on Turkey's role in a fracturing Western alliance
Sinem Adar, head of the Centre for Applied Turkey Studies at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, on Turkey's international profile and domestic political trajectory after its recent hosting of the NATO summit in Ankara. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#249
June 23 · 45 min
Hannah Lucinda Smith on Turkey, Russia and Europe's hinterlands
Hannah Lucinda Smith on “Hinterlands: Journeys through Europe’s Unfinished Frontiers” (Profile Books). The book shows how Eastern Europe, the East Mediterranean and the Caucasus are becoming geopolitical hotspots as revisionist powers like Russia and Turkey look to secure a greater share of the pie. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#248
June 9 · 36 min
Doruk Erhan on the limits of Turkey's shift to autocracy
Doruk Erhan on the crackdown on Turkey's main opposition party. Judicial operations on the CHP have led pundits to warn the country is shifting to a post-democratic system of arbitrary rule, but in recent articles for the Verfassungsblog, Erhan makes a relatively optimistic case for the opposition's path forward. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#247
May 26 · 33 min
Jennifer Hattam on writing the Lonely Planet guide to Turkey
Istanbul-based journalist Jennifer Hattam on her work updating the Lonely Planet guide to Turkey. The conversation touches on the immense amount of work and miles that go into updating the guide, as well as how Turkey has changed since she first did the job. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#246
May 12 · 39 min
Brett Wilson on the myth and reality of modern Turkey's religious reforms
Brett Wilson on his article "Sufi Leaders in the early Turkish Republic: Profession, Privilege, and Persecution (1925-1950)". The piece studies the impact of the 1925 outlawing of Islamic religious orders, challenging the traditional idea of harsh secularist persecution. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#245
April 28 · 48 min
Suzy Hansen on Turkey and an Istanbul neighborhood in the age of Erdoğan
Suzy Hansen on “From Life Itself: Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdoğan” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The book focuses on Istanbul's Karagumruk to explore the everyday impact of geopolitical upheaval, economic turbulence and the arrival of Syrian migrants in Turkey. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#244
April 14 · 34 min
Faisal Devji on the crisis of 'global Islam' in Turkey and elsewhere
Faisal Devji on “Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam” (Yale University Press). The book argues that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Islam in countries including Turkey transformed into a modern ideological system like capitalism or communism, but this process has now reached its end. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#243
March 31 · 38 min
Ryan Gingeras on organised crime in Turkey's modern history
Ryan Gingeras, author of “Mafia: A Global History” (Simon & Schuster) and “Heroin, Organized Crime, and the Making of Modern Turkey” (Oxford University Press), on the influence of criminal organisations in Turkey's political and economic life over the decades. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by Bloomsbury Academic, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#242
March 17 · 38 min
Mustafa Aksakal on World War I and the end of the Ottoman Empire
Mustafa Aksakal, associate professor of history at Georgetown University, on “The War that Made the Middle East: World War I and the End of the Ottoman Empire” (Princeton University Press) Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#241
March 3 · 30 min
Michelle Lynn Kahn on Turkish migration to Germany
Michelle Lynn Kahn on “Foreign in Two Homelands: Racism, Return Migration and Turkish-German History” (Cambridge University Press). Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#240
February 17 · 42 min
Murat Yıldız on the Ottoman world of sports, modernisation and minorities
Murat Yıldız, associate professor of history at Skidmore College, on “The Ottoman World of Sports: Refashioning Bodies, Men, and Communities in Late Imperial Istanbul” (University of Texas Press) Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#239
February 3 · 30 min
Berin Gür on the conquest of Istanbul in the Islamist-nationalist imagination
Berin Gür on “The Conquest of Istanbul and the Manipulation of Architecture: The Islamist-Nationalist Rhetoric of Conquest and Melancholy” (Routledge). The book explores how the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul is remembered in Turkey's mainstream official narrative and how architecture contributes to this. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#238
January 20 · 37 min
Adnan Khan on the human toll of Turkey's importing of Europe's waste
Journalist Adnan Khan on the spectacular growth of Turkey's plastic waste imports and the role of migrant labour in the sector. His work paints a grim portrait of how the EU-Turkey migration deal and China's banning of plastic waste imports have helped the industry flourish in Turkey - with deadly human consequences. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#237
January 6 · 32 min
Burcu Karahan on sexual freedom and women in late Ottoman fiction
Burcu Karahan on her translation of “One Thousand and One Kisses: The Most Joyous and Flirtatious Stories” (Translation Attached). The book brings together 65 stories blending humour and eroticism, published anonymously in 1923-24. The stories are a fascinating time capsule of a vanished age, but much remains unknown about who was behind them. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#236
Dec 22, 2025 · 35 min
Mehmet Gurses on the transformation of Turkey's Kurdish issue
Mehmet Gurses on his article “Turkey's Kurdish Conflict Transformed”, published in the Current History journal. The conversation places the PKK's emergence and transformations in a historical context over the past five decades, also weighing up shifts that may be triggered by its current dialogue process with Ankara. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#235
Dec 9, 2025 · 41 min
Reuben Silverman on the rise and fall of Turkey's Democrat Party
Reuben Silverman on “The Rise and Fall of Turkey's Democrat Party: The Cold War and Illiberalism, 1945–60” (Cambridge University Press). Today's AKP government is often placed in the lineage of the Democrat Party, in power for 10 years before being overthrown in a coup in 1960. But as the book shows, the line from the Democrat Party to today is "neither as straight nor as flattering as Erdogan would have it be". Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#234
Nov 25, 2025 · 38 min
Seçil Daǧtaș on religious difference in Turkey's Hatay
Seçil Daǧtaș on “Under the Same Sky: Everyday Politics of Religious Difference in Southern Turkey” (University of Pennsylvania Press). The book is an ethnographic study of “the social reproduction of religious differences” in Turkey's uniquely diverse Hatay province. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
#233
Nov 11, 2025 · 37 min
Senem Aydin-Duzgit on foreign policy weaponisation in Turkish domestic politics
Senem Aydın-Düzgit on her article “Foreign Policy as Domestic Politics in Populist Competitive Authoritarianism,” published in the South European Society and Politics journal. The conversation looks at how Erdogan uses foreign policy, defence policy and strongman diplomacy to reinforce public backing for the regime in Turkey. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.

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