Turkey occupies a strategic position in today's world: The only
predominantly Muslim nation to be a member of NATO and an ally of
Israel, it straddles both Europe and Asia. Turkey is the link between
Islam and Western democracy, between Europe and the Middle East. In this
concise introduction, Andrew Finkel, who has spent twenty years in
Turkey writing about the country for publications such as The
Economist and Time magazine, unravels Turkey's complexities. He sets
the complications and transformations of present-day Turkey against the
historical background of the Ottoman Empire, the secular nationalist
revolution led by Kemal Atatürk, and repeated political interventions by
the military, which sees itself as the guardian of Atatürk's legacy.
Finkel reveals a nation full of surprises. Where else but in Turkey,
Finkel writes, would secularist liberals have supported a prime minister
who was once jailed for promoting religious extremism? From the Kurdish
question to economic policy, from Turkey's role in Iraq to its quest for
EU membership, Finkel illuminates the past and present of this unique,
and uniquely consequential, country.
