Andrew Mango - Böcker

This book examines Turkey's position in the world at the end of the Cold War. An account of Turkey's political history, society, and economy helps determine what degree of credence to attach to the claim that Turkey is an island of stability in a troubled area extending from the borders of the European Union to China. The author describes Turkey's foreign relations with the West, in general, and the European Union, in particular, and also with its Middle Eastern neighbors, Greece and the ex-communist countries, including the Turkic republics of the former Soviet Union. The emphasis is on Turkey's ability to support Western efforts to bring political stability to the region and to enter into partnership with Western economic enterprise.

Since the 1970s, Turkey has suffered 35,000 deaths through terrorism, yet the PKK terror group was only recognized as such by the European Union in 2002.The realization that terrorism poses a world-wide threat is now forcing a keen reassessment of the struggle which Turkey has had to wage with terror for over thirty years while the world looked on. Terror is clearly now a key part of the international agenda and this authoritative account details and establishes the Turkish experience.This chronological account of terrorist attacks inside Turkey and against Turkish targets outside the country, places them in the global setting.This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of international relations, terrorism and security studies.

This biography of Atatürk aims to strip away the myth to show the complexities of the man beneath. Born plain Mustafa in Ottoman Salonica in 1881, he trained as an army officer but 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. He imposed coherence, order and mordernity and in the process, created his own legend and his own cult.

Eighty years have passed since Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the Turkish Republic out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire and set it on the path of modernisation. He was determined that his country should be accepted as a member of the family of civilised nations. Today Turkey is a rapidly developing country, an emergent market and a medium-sized regional power with the second strongest army in NATO. It is an open country which attracts millions of tourists, thousands of foreign businessmen and hundreds of researchers. They enjoy Turkish hospitality and experience its rich landscape and history, but many find it hard to form an overall picture of the country.In this sequel to his acclaimed biography of Atatürk, Andrew Mango provides such an overall portrait, tracing the republic's development since the death of its founder and bringing to life the Turkish people and their vibrant society. The Turks Today interprets the latest academic research for a broader audience, making this highly readable book the authoritative work on modern Turkey.

World War I sounded the death knell of empires. The forces of disintegration affected several empires simultaneously. To that extent they were impersonal. But prudent statesmen could delay the death of empires, rulers such as Emperor Franz Josef II of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II. Adventurous rulers Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and Enver Pasha in the Ottoman Empire hastened it. Enver's decision to enter the war on the side of Germany destroyed the Ottoman state. It may have been doomed in any case, but he was the agent of its doom. The last Sultan Mehmet VI Vahdettin thought he could salvage the Ottoman state in something like its old form. But Vahdettin and his ministers could not succeed because the victorious Allies had decided on the final partition of the Ottoman state. The chief proponent of partition was Lloyd George, heir to the Turcophobe tradition of British liberals, who fell under the spell of the Greek irredentist politician Venizelos. With these two in the lead, the Allies sought to impose partition on the Sultan's state. When the Sultan sent his emissaries to the Paris peace conference they could not win a reprieve.The Treaty of Sevres which the Sultan's government signed put an end to Ottoman independence. The Treaty of Sevres was not ratified. Turkish nationalists, with military officers in the lead, defied the Allies, who promptly broke ranks, each one trying to win concessions for himself at the expense of the others. Mustafa Kemal emerged as the leader of the military resistance. Diplomacy allowed Mustafa Kemal to isolate his people's enemies: Greek and Armenian irredentists. Having done so, he defeated them by force of arms. In effect, the defeat of the Ottoman empire in the First World War was followed by the Turks' victory in two separate wars: a brief military campaign against the Armenians and a long one against the Greeks. Lausanne where General Ismet succeeded in securing peace on Turkey's terms was the founding charter of the modern Turkish nation state. But more than that it showed that empires could no longer rule people against their wishes. This need not be disastrous: Mustafa Kemal demonstrated that the interests of developed countries were compatible with those of developing ones. He fought the West in order to become like it.Where his domestic critics wanted to go on defying the West, Mustafa Kemal saw that his country could fare best in cooperation with the West.