In Understanding the Turkish Culture, this book was the way to go

books:


	• Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds Stephen Kinzer Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 85 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Excellent perceptive cry for Turkey

The army is an Ataturk fundemantalist and is holding Turkey back. Kinzer has a very good /sense/ of the Turks and wants them to be a progessive force in moving on with the 21st century. As a journalist he wrote a superb book. He travelled the country and spoke to a wide range of people. The Turks will eventually take ownership of their Armenian and Kurdish issues. I enjoyed my travels in Turkey.............. Turkey is a great country and this book does not ditract from it.......

In Understanding the Turkish Culture, this book was the way to go

My views about the Turkish culture have completely vanished, for a couple of reasons. For one, this book helped me understand the historical nature of Turkey, their composition, and their underlyings as it relates to its culture. The second reason is the mere fact that I had the opportunity to visit Turkey- and what an incredible relation.

This book was an amazing look at the history of Turkey as well as how they do things and why they do things. Don't think for a second that you know everything about Turkey- I still don't! But- I think the best medicine for wiping away the prejudices and views of a culture is to visit, and to research.

Pick this book up and get engulfed into an amazing story- a true story...

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GREAT BOOK!

WOW, THIS IS A GREAT BOOK, HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT, I HOPE TURKEY GETS RID OF ISLAMIST FASCISM, AND TURNS COMPLETELY TO THE WEST, AND LET FREEDOM OF SPEECH RULE.

Ataturk's Dream

Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds

The history of Turkey is as old as civilization itself. The Byzantine and Ottoman Empires; the Crusades; and the mystery of the East. Constantinople was one of the cradles of civilization, and modern Istanbul is one of the worlds most cosmopolitan cities. Ancient Christian churches stand next to holy Islamic mosques, and the city straddles the Bosphorus between Europe and Asia. It is no wonder that Turkey has intrigued visitors for centuries. One of them is the New York Times¡¦ former Istanbul Bureau Chief, Stephen Kinzer, who has written an accessible introduction to the Turkish experience.

The country is full of contradictions and paradoxes: old and modern, religious and secular, East and West. Kinzer traces the history of modern Turkey from its inception from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, through the regime of Mustapha Kemal, a hero of Galipoli who changed his name to Ataturk (Father of the Turks).

Ataturk instituted wide-ranging reforms including allowing women to participate in public life, stressing literacy, changing the Turkish alphabet from Arabic Latin, banning the Fez and the Veil- symbols of Islam-- and making the country responsible to the Military.

Kinzer traveled the country from Hookah parlors to bistros to impoverished villages in predominantly Kurdish eastern Turkey. He examines the Kurdish and Armenian problems and the difficulty of having a free press in a controlled society. Among his conclusions are that Turkey has to embrace modernity and accept change if it is to fulfill Ataturk s vision.

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If Turkey lived up to its potential, it could rule the world - but will it? A passionate report from the front lines

For centuries few terrors were more vivid in the West than fear of "the Turk," and many people still think of Turkey as repressive, wild, and dangerous. Crescent and Star is Stephen Kinzer's compelling report on the truth about this nation of contradictions - poised between Europe and Asia, caught between the glories of its Ottoman past and its hopes for a democratic future, between the dominance of its army and the needs of its civilian citizens, between its secular expectations and its Muslim traditions.

Kinzer vividly describes Turkey's captivating delights as he smokes a water pipe, searches for the ruins of lost civilizations, watches a camel fight, and discovers its greatest poet. But he is also attuned to the political landscape, taking us from Istanbul's elegant cafes to wild mountain outposts on Turkey's eastern borders, while along the way he talks to dissidents and patriots, villagers and cabinet ministers. He reports on political trials and on his own arrest by Turkish soldiers when he was trying to uncover secrets about the army's campaigns against Kurdish guerillas. He explores the nation's hope to join the European Union, the human-rights abuses that have kept it out, and its difficult relations with Kurds, Armenians, and Greeks.

Will this vibrant country, he asks, succeed in becoming a great democratic state? He makes it clear why Turkey is poised to become "the most audacious nation of the twenty-first century."

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