Great resource for anyone who for whatever reason needs/wants to know about Turkey today.

You are my enslavement and my freedom

You are my flesh burning like a raw summer night

You are my country

You are the green silks in hazel eyes

You are big, beautiful and triumphant

And you are my sorrow that isn't felt

the more I feel it.

- Nâzım Hikmet


I've never (as yet) read a bad book by Kinzer. He writes about political landscapes and foreign policy choices of 'controversial' countries, and I'm sure he has his biases, but from a purely apolitical standpoint, Kinzer's way of crafting a story is pure gold. 


On top of that, this book not only offers a look at how Turkey evolved post 1923, but is also a memoir of sorts, each chapter ending with a cultural snapshot of Turkey, captured lovingly by Kinzer. We have him drinking raki, watching camel fights, running a "true blues" radio program, and swimming across the Bosphorus. These bits were easily my favorite, making we wish Kinzer would write a book solely about his own relationship with Turkey (so I could read it as a companion to Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul - one of my most favourite books of all time.) 


2023 marked the completion of a century of the founding of the Republic of Turkey, now Türkiye. While this book is very dated, considering how much things seem to have changed since this book's last edition of 2008, it offers a good understanding of why Turkey is the way it is, and how Kemal Atatürk, the founding father of Turkey, influenced the shaping of the country well past his death. Kinzer traces the tensions that emerged in modern Turkey as a result of Kemalist principles - secularism vs religious freedom, stability vs free speech, security vs true democracy. Turkey's history proves why balance in governance should be the ultimate goal - because too great a tilt in favor of any of these, like secularism or security, can effectively end up creating more problems than it solves. Kinzer elaborates in detail the role of army, and the way it exercised disproportionate control over the Republic, resulting in frequent coups - all done in the name of preserving the Kemalist order, which was seen as the ultimate goal. 


There are chapters on the turbulent relations between Turkey and the Kurds, and the Armenian genocide - both of which play an important role in the Turkish psyche. This book is strictly speaking not a good enough primer for understanding these issues, but Kinzer combines history, contemporary events, and his own on the ground reporting in a deft manner. 


Many personalities have been introduced here, but Turgut Özal stands out. Though Kinzer brings him up often, I would have liked a clearer profile, especially how he rose to power after a military coup, and what his ideas were - which were perhaps nearly as significant as that of Kemal Atatürk. But where this book lacks in case of Özal, it exceeds brilliantly in case of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan - with good reason. Türkiye is today one of the foremost second order powers in the world, and understanding Erdoğan and his ideas for his country is crucial. It's a damn shame this book stops around 2008, because Kinzer's impressions of Erdoğan is from an era that is drastically different from today. What I wouldn't give for Kinzer to come out with a 3rd edition of this book, if only to chart the course of Erdoğan's politics, right upto his reelection as President in 2023. 


The more I read about Turkey, the more I'm fascinated by it. Turkey's geography is much talked about, and rightly so, and its history and culture are shaped by its geography. Kinzer does a great job of making us understand the way modern Turkey emerged from Ottoman sultanate, how Kemalist ideals gave way for a secular Muslim country, that turned around to embrace its religious identity despite the many attempts at preserving the old order. Kinzer talks a bit about the import of Turkey's relationship with religion, because it serves as an example for the rest of the Muslim world. I do wish Kinzer had elaborated a bit more on Turkey's influence on the other Muslim countries though. 

On the list of things that I wish was talked about more is Turkey's unique position as a NATO member that challenges US expectations quite a bit, including its relations with Russia, Iran and Palestine. This does get a small mention in the book, but it's not nearly enough. This book is domestically focused for the most part, but the foreign policy does creep in, and it's extremely interesting.

That's my main complaint overall - I wish this book was longer, and I wish he'd come up with an updated edition.

Adding some links that I looked up after finishing this - 

100 years of the Republic of Turkey – in pictures - this also helps to see the events of this book (from Atatürk to Erdoğan's election in 2003) in a chronological context, because the book itself groups events thematically, which can be a bit confusing. 

Why Turkey is Angry with America (YouTube)

Kinzer's May, 2023 piece on Erdogan being reelected President: "Erdogan, A 21st Century Sultan, Wins Again" - the change in Kinzer's tone from the one he uses for Erdoğan in this book is sufficient proof that we need a 3rd ed!

I only wish that Kinzer had written this brilliant history of modern Turkey in 2016 instead of 2001, since the ensuing 15 years has brought so many more chapters to the story. This is an outstanding background for anyone interested in understanding modern Turkey; I will have to find a more current work of equal depth and scope to bring me up to date on this most central of countries in the evolution of the modern world.

Turkey is an anomaly. For centuries, it was the dreaded foe of Christendom, twice pushing at the very gates of Vienna. After the Great War, when the victorious west disassembled the Ottoman Empire and reduced the Turks to mere Antaolia, it seemed a total defeat -- but shortly thereafter, a rare Turkish hero of the Great War led a revolution and established a new Turkish Republic, one that -- phoenix like -- drove away its exhausted enemies and even reclaimed a foothold into Europe. It was to Europe that the new lord looked: not as an object of conquest, but an object of emulation. Like Peter the Great, Mustafa Kemal would make his life's ambition to modernize and westernize the Turks whether they wanted it or not. Using the military to carry forth his will, he declared war on the past: out with fezzes and zithers, in with fedoras and Bach! While the other mideastern countries that emerged from the Ottoman disintegration drifted into tyranny -- religious in Afghanistan, secular in Iraq, both in Iran -- Turkey remained anomalous, discretely controlled by a military that had enforced liberalization, and counted itself the enemy of Taliban-style religious rule, but itself imposed limits on democracy and speech. But the forced liberalization of Turkey at the hands of an illiberal power, the military state, has long since showed its age. Turks today want more from their 'devlet', their state, than being patronized; they want genuine democracy, genuine freedom to talk about issues the military order would rather have stay buried.

Crescent and Star is the product of one man falling in love with Turkey while living there for years for the New York Times; It combines vignettes about life in Turkey with historical-political reporting, both heavily steeped in obvious affection for Turkey as a whole. It us romantic and at times naive -- Kinzer bubbles that Turkey could be a world power and admits that portraits of Kemal hang in his office, as they do around Turkey -- but to the total outsider like myself, informative. Kinzer's passion for Kemalism is never hidden: he wants Turkey to become not merely a member of the European Union, but a genuine European power. Again and again he asserts the cultural bonds that link Turkey and eastern Europe. Greece and Turkey are divided by political bickering over Aegean islands more than anything else, and towards the end he presents a heartwarming account of trans-Aegean brotherhood in the wake of a series of earthquakes. As one earthquake near Istanbul shattered belief in the devlet's competency and humanitarian interests, it also shattered belief in malevolent Greeks: the Greeks were first to come with aide, and when Greece had its own earthquake days later, the Turks responded to that charity in kind -- charity in the truest sense of the word, caritas, love in action. For Turkey to fulfill its destiny, Kinzer writes, the military must acknowledge that its paternalism has kept Turkish domestic politics immature. Its protective intervention in the past, removing incompetent officials whose blundering were pushing the country toward civil war, have served their purpose: for Turks to become truly European, they must be set free to create their own destinies.

Crescent and Star brims over with human interest, created by personal research. Kinzer lived in Turkey for at least four years during his tenure as bureau chief for the New York Times, and he cultivated a variety of friendships, even hosting a blues radio show in Istanbul. He interviewed Turks and Kurds extensively, and his obvious love for Turkey is not in the least dampened by the stories of Armenians and Kurds who have suffered at the hand of the state. The Turks have his affection, not the Turkish government. While the book's optimism -- stemming from a quiet Kurdish front and ongoing negotiations with the EU -- now dates it, given how the chaos in Iraq and Syria has turned Turkey's borders into a war zone, Kinzer's account nontheless illustrates how Turkey's history has given it a pecuilar stamp, a place able to bridge Europe and the middle east not only geographically. Turkey's close involvement with the Syrian war, its frequent brushes with the Russians and Iranians, make it a country worth knowing about. Considering that a faction within the military attempted to assert itself politically once again, there's no denying this kind of book's relevance.

I think this book is a 3 1/2.

I liked the author's writing style. It provided me with a general idea of Turkey's history, politics and challenges as of 2008.

Journalist Stephen Kinzer presents Turkish politics in a condensed format from an American perspective. Turkey sits on the brink of greatness and entry to the EU, but Kinzer asks what is needed to tip the balance. He examines age-old conflicts in Turkey with the Armenians, Greeks, and Kurds and as well the struggle between the Kemalists and Islamist sects in the government.

Stephen Kinzer's book was a joy to read, even as a Turkish person who knows much of what he wrote. His arrangement of the book as one political/history part and one story part makes the book a fun read.

Kinzer has really detailed observations on Turkey. I don't agree with much of his opinions, but I'm sure that they are all sincere thoughts. It's also sometimes surprising to see that he's easily spoken with the people in the highest ranks of the government, military and diplomacy.

His view of Turkey is also not so orientalist, though it's a stranger's eyes anyway.

Grabbed this book for 50c at a library book sale - I knew it was written in 2001 and so would only serve as a snapshot in time, but it was still interesting to paint a picture and to look back on all that has happened since. Erdogan does feature once, early in the book, with a quick mention of him as a former mayor of Istanbul.

I have permanently set aside this book for one by a Turkish author, Snow.

Interesting look at 20th century Turkey. Makes me want to read about the Ottoman Empire and its influence on the lands it ruled.

Recommended as reading before a tour of Türkiye.

I think this book does a commendable job of describing the path of Türkiye’s growth from its birth from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire to the early 2000s. It gives form to the incredible accomplishment of Ataturk, highlights the decreasing power of the military, investigates the inherent conflict between Ataturk’s secularism and the increasing power of Islamists in the AKP party.

But so much has happened since the publication of the revised version in 2008 - the rise of the followers of Fethullah Gülen, the purge of Gülenists from the judiciary, education system, and military after the failed coup in 2016, and the rising dissatisfaction with Erdogan and the AKP. It’s time for someone to bring the story up-to-date.

Great political history of modern Turkey -- if you are interested in Turkey.