内容简介
Turkey, write journalists Nicole and Hugh Pope in this well-madenarrative history, is a land that defies easy categorization, amelange of elements "European, Western, Eastern, Islamic,fascistic, anarchic" that has always been something of an enigma tooutsiders. After decades of stagnation, it is now emerging as anation of central importance in Eurasian geopolitics, as it was inthe days of the Ottoman Empire. The authors describe the growth ofthe modern Turkish state in the aftermath of World War I, when thatempire, defeated by the Allied powers, splintered into some 30independent states. Led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his so-calledYoung Turks, the postwar state sought to curb the growth of Islamicfundamentalism, to introduce some measure of democracy into aformerly autocratic system, and to secure a place for Turkey in theconstellation of world powers. They were only partly successful;Atatürk, the authors contend, "led Turkey on the path ofWesternization, but left it stranded half-way to fulldemocratization because, deep down, he was not a democrat." Now,after years of military rule, the Turkish government is makingefforts both to continue that democratization and to secureinfluence among the emerging Central Asian republics of the formerSoviet Union. The nation, the authors write, is now the arena ofconflict between left and right, fundamentalist and secularist,nationalist and cosmopolitan: it stands at a crossroads bothpolitical and historical. Westerners, they suggest, would do wellto pay closer attention to Turkish affairs, and their book is afine contribution toward that end. --Gregory McNamee --This textrefers to the Hardcover edition.