The Shortest History of Turkey

Benjamin Fortna

$27.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Black Inc
01 July 2025

History; Regional & national history

The world-changing story of Turkey - a country caught between two worlds

This brilliant distillation traces Turkey's long and complicated history from the rise and decline of the Ottoman Empire - the most enduring, and perhaps the most important, Islamic empire in history - to the emergence of the modern Turkish Republic in the early twentieth century and the populist, authoritarian leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan today.

Over more than nine centuries of change, Turkey has been a cultural melting pot, straddling Asia and Europe, and a nation-state bent on ethnic unity. It has seen conquest and reform, appeals to tradition and calls to modernise. It has been a home to Christians, Jews, Muslims and more, and it has aggressively pursued both secularisation and Islamisation.

In The Shortest History of Turkey, historian Benjamin Fortna offers a concise yet nuanced overview of this complex trajectory, revealing how persistent tensions between opposing visions for Turkey have shaped, and continue to shape, the country and its people.

By: Benjamin Fortna
Imprint: Black Inc
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 1mm, Width: 1mm,
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9781760644659
ISBN 10: 176064465X
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 01 July 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Benjamin C. Fortna is a professor of history and director of the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona. He has published numerous books on the Ottoman Empire, the early Turkish Republic and modern Turkey, and has appeared on the BBC programs Who Do You Think You Are? and The Ottomans- Europe's Muslim Emperors.