Turkey

"Stones irreverent narrative is a spur to read more about a forgotten power that is central to Europe's history". ("The Financial Times"). "Arresting authoritative and measured "Stones Turkey" breaks the popular mould and introduces its readers to a place beyond their presumptions". ("The Sunday Times"). "A fanfare for modern Turkey and a vivid, provocative, often funny, always insightful account of how it came about. Stone pulls together his accomplishments as a philoturk, a philologist, controversialist and narrative historian to sweep his readers along a short crash course in Turkish origins, their history and current challenges. If you really don't know why a portrait of Ataturk hangs in almost every shop in Turkey, read this book". ("The Guardian"). "No one else writes history he does". (Andrew Roberts). Written by a virtuoso performance historian Norman Stone, who has lived and worked in the country since 1997, this is a concise survey of Turkey's relations with its immediate neighbours and the wider world from the 11th century to the present day. Stone deftly conducts the reader through this story, from the arrival of the Seljuks in Anatolia in the eleventh century to the modern republic applying for EU membership in the twenty-first. It is an historical account of epic proportions, featuring rapacious leaders such as Genghis Khan and Tamerlane through the glories of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent to Kemal Ataturk, the reforming genius and founder of modern Turkey. At its height, the Ottoman Empire was a superpower that brought Islam to the gates of Vienna. Stone examines the reasons for the empires long decline and shows how it gave birth to the modern Turkish republic, where east and west, religion and secularism, tradition and modernity still form vibrant elements of national identity. Norman Stone brilliantly draws out the larger themes of Turkey's history, resulting in a book that is a masterly exposition of the historians craft.