This is a great little introduction to modern turkey, written by someone who was the New York Times bureau chief in Istanbul for a few years. It is full of enthusiasm for Turkey, and covers the basics: who was Atatürk, what has happened since then, lite coverage of the Armenian genocide, and the Kurdish insurrection. Between these chapters are more personal chapters (written entirely in italics for some reason) about the authors experiences and adventures in Turkey (such as swimming across the Bosphorous), which are fun to read. Overall the book is a quick read and a valuable introduction to the country.

I finished this book just before takeoff on my trip to visit this beautiful country, and it made me feel so anxious to experience Turkey! Between Crescent and Star was so readable, so informative, and just so interesting. The author shares his love for the land, yet still presents an objective view of its politics and recent history. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about this bridge not only between east and west, but between the ancient and modern world.

This is a book on modern history of Turkey (if you can call 2008 “modern” in 2018) and it’s a good yet not an excellent read.

I did get a good understanding of the modern Turkish state - where it comes from (Ataturk Revolution), what challenges it did or does face (Kurdish problem, history of military rule, secular vs religious state) and what are its cultural customs. I especially enjoyed sketches at the end of each chapter telling about nargile (shisha), meze (Turkish entrees) or some interesting places. In fact I went to one of them - old ruins of Phaselis - simply because of what I read in the book and it turned out to be one of the best experiences in my 3 weeks in Turkey.

But in a number of ways the book was a disappointment. I felt that the author was repeating himself coming back to the same topics over and over again in different chapters. The Kurdish issue and the EU membership were especially tiring. I felt that some chapters could be 1/2 as short.

If you are planing to go to Turkey and want a historical introduction I would rather recommend you read "Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World" by Thomas F. Madden that gives a historical outlook tracing modern Turkey back to early Greek settlers or a short “Turkey: What everyone should know” by Andrew Finkel on modern history.

You insult turkish people all over the world, turk state, everything that made up my people. Stop this.
Stephen kinzer doesnt know anything about my country, and people. So who are you that saying about turkisness. According to you turk isnt etnic people. It is only common name that given by Atatürk.

"We are turk nomads. We are Yoruk, Turkmen, Turkic people. We have several state and the last one Turkey Repeblic will live forever. Atatürk says that "One day my mortal body will turn to dust, but the Turkish Republic will stand forever. "

You have never understand turkic people. So hide the shitty opinion yourselves. American and english imperialist go to hell. You never subjugate the turks.

awsome description of the Turkish culture and it's historic transformation.

I enjoyed and learned from this informed and warm account of modern Turkey and its historical underpinnings. I liked the structure, which focussed on issues rather than a historical chronology, although by the time I was through, I had a good sense of that, too. Kinzer's passion and hope for the country is clear. It is a bit dated in light of the Arab spring and subsequent events--I would be interested in reading an update.

“In 1934 Atatürk learned that a ship carrying relatives of fallen Allied soldiers had docked near Gallipoli and that its passengers were mourning at the site. He sent them a moving message that is now chiseled, in English translation, into a memorial stone there. "Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives," he wrote, "you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us, where they lie side by side in this country of ours . .. You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well."
- Crescent and Star : Turkey - Between 2 worlds by Stephen Kinzer
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I don’t really like reading a history of one’s country that was not written or narrated by their own people. This is because - for the most part - their perception and remarks as an outsider always ticked me off . What’s weird is i always found this problem more apparent among American and European writers. Call me close minded for all i care but that’s what i felt when i almost finished this book. This whole notion wanted another country (in this case Turkey) to be more westernised / liberated or modernised is so cringey. Imperialist much? Listen, I bought this book simply because i wanted to learn Turkey / Turkiye History. I have always been fascinated by this country and I have admired Mustafa Kemal Atatürk for his stance in ensuring secularism is being solidified in his country administration and at the same time, kept religion at bay. This admiration of mine unfortunately didn’t receive well by some of my friends and family members but it is what it is. Then, when i saw this book at the bargain box in a bookstore, i bought it right away. Unfortunately, i wish i read other ‘better’ book about Turkey instead of this one. Note : since this book is being published in 2001, and Turkey has changed its name to Turkiye recently, my review might be using Turkey as to accommodate the publication year. I have to admit that i learned a lot - history (From Ottoman empire even to the controversial of Armenian Genocide) to the love-hate dynamics between Turks and Greeks , political sect and affiliation (Kemalist versus Islamist) to the odd equation of power between military and bureaucrats and even local delicacies and nature (the beauty of Bosphorus) of this great country because Stephen Kinzer is after all, a former New York Times Correspondent. He knows how to write brilliantly, that i can admit but when it comes to his personal opinion or how his experience living in a Turkey, immersing himself in the culture or observing the common people, it has that condescending tone and somewhat rude. I am nowhere a big fan of religion but one can see how the author disdained Islam and his analysis on Islam and Autocratic in Turkey sometimes contradict each other (at one point Islam is said to be problematic in Turkey and Military did well to control it but on another military control should not exist in a true democratic government) which begged the question of authenticity in his writing. The book for the most part is not in chronological order and if this is the first history book that you read of Turkey, you will get confused like i did. It took about 50 pages to get used to the style. Some of the chapters can be jarring and remember, some of the analysis is outdated as Turkey has changed a lot over the years. Overall, i am not sure whether i wanted to recommend this book or not to others. I think it may works well for people who already know about Turkey and wanted to refresh their memory of this country or those who wanted to read about Turkey from the American Lens.

Read this in preparation for going to Turkey in August. Kinzer is a former NY Times correspondent who has written several books. Seems like he is a good journalist who learned the language and culture very well and was granted access to important figures.

One passage from his inter-chapter interludes got me particularly excited, Kinzer talks about the countless historically and archeologically significant sites that no one even knows about:

"Even the discovered sites are so remote and widely scattered that many are rarely visited. In Turkey I have followed routes taken by Julius Ceasar and Saint Peter, walked among weird monoliths carved by Hittite sculptors three thousand years ago, crawled into caves used as churches by early Christians and climbed rocky hills up to crusaders' castles. Once I took a drive through eastern Turkey that in the space of just four days took me to unforgettable ruins from half a dozen great cultures."

The book is a pretty quick read and focuses on some of the history and current events (up to last year) that have shaped Turkey profoundly. I learned a lot and highly recommend it. He does a good job of showing the conflicts and contradictions of the nation as well as its hopes.

One thing I gleaned from reading it is that Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's Prime Minister, reminds me a lot of Barack Obama. Erdogan was elected under deep suspicion from the old guard and has since tried to prove himself to be a more moderate-leaning democrat while trying to move Turkey forward toward the EU. In fact, I just found a recent Turkish news article off Kinzer's website that quotes Kinzer as saying "Turkey's new identity fits with Obama's view of the world."

The author -NY Times’ Turkey correspondent for four years, argues that time has come for Turkey to finally reach its potential.

Analyzing Turkey’s relationship with Greece, Armenia, and the Kurds from a western perspective, Kinzer keeps reiterating throughout the book that Turkey should admit “realities,” without somehow specifying what those realities are. The author contradicts himself when he writes that he understands the role of the military within Turkish politics in keeping the islamist currents in check, only to then argue a few pages later that the military should not meddle in politics.

The book is unfortunately strewn with factual mistakes, and as expected has met with scathing criticism.

Great information. I felt like the book could have been a 5 if Stephen had kept to a chronological order. For the most part he did, but he jumped back and forth from the 1980's through 2007. It left me feeling disoriented about the present state of Turkey. His last chapter attempted to show the present state of Turkey, but Stephen again left me feeling like Turkey is on the brink of disaster and also so close to becoming what it has desired to be for so long. That is probably the intended effect. He left the hazy dreamlike ambiguity because Turkey is caught in between the dreams of the secular democratic Turks and the fundamental Islamic Turks. Soon, Turkey's dreams will be fully realized. Which of these dreams will win? I prefer to remain uncertain just as Stephen Kinzer is.

At times a bit precious and excessively focused on personal impressions rather than deeper historical analysis, but a nice read. If you're looking for a chronological history, this is not the book for you. If you're looking for a series of interesting, albeit subjective, cultural snapshots with dashes of history here and there, then this is exactly what you're looking for.

Stephen Kinzer's Crescent and Star is a work of journalism about Turkey, covering several different areas of the country's history and present, including the controversial ones. The book begins with the country's origins following the late Ottoman empire and on to Kemal Ataturk and the Young Turks. Kinzer seems to think that Ataturk's reformist efforts with Turkey were mostly a good idea but chock full of strange paradoxes.

Just as in France today, Turkey's earliest attempt to secularize meant the deep removal of religion and religious symbolism from political institutions. That is to say, just as in France, as opposed to the United States, say, the goal was not to protect religious freedoms but to protect secular freedom from religion. This was problematic for much of the population since most people were still deeply religious at the nation's founding.

As for other controversial topics, Kinzer also addresses the Armenian genocide, the so-called 'Kurdish problem,' and Erdogan and the AKP's role in politics today. Kinzer tries to be evenhanded in his presentation of his topics, or if he favors one direction or the other he tries to tell you why he thinks as much. But still, his position is bound to anger many. Regarding the Armenian genocide, he writes that certainly there were many Armenians killed to make the Turkish revolution possible, but whether it was a genocide is just a matter of definition: the killing of how many people constitutes a genocide? is the question. By the way, as a parallel concern, the Boston Tea Party Massacre is referred to as a massacre, where five American colonialists died. Whether the death of five constitutes a massacre is an open question.

Kinzer gives equal time to Turkey's concerns against the Kurds as well as the Kurdish and PKK case. He has obvious sympathies with the Kurdish cause. He did a lot of journalistic work moving through Kurdish towns that landed him in a Turkish prison for a night, where he was interrogated and scared out of his mind.

Kinzer also favors Erdogan, writing that either it is the case that his religious sentiment that he began with from back when he was Mayor of Istanbul has cooled, or it is the case that he is pragmatic enough not to want to alienate the large proportion of secular proponents. I don't know personally what to make of Ergodan and the AKP, and to know more I need more work.

Maybe it's best not to read this work uncritically, and more importantly to supplement it with other works to get a clearer picture of modern Turkey. That's what I am going to do. I will admit, though, that I think this was a great read, even if skewed, and I am happy to start with this book as an introduction.