Title

Crescent and star : Turkey between two worlds

Description

For centuries few terrors were more vivid in the West than fear of "the Turk", and many people still think of Turkey as repressive, wild, and dangerous. Crescent and Star is Stephen Kinzer's compelling report on the truth about this nation of contradictions - posed between Europe and Asia, caught between the glories of its Ottoman past and its hopes for a democratic future, between the dominance of its army and the needs of its civilian citizens, between its secular expectations and its Muslim traditions. Will this vibrant country succeed in becoming a great democratic state? This book makes it clear why Turkey is posed to become "the most audacious nation of the twenty-first century."

Identifier

970403

374131430

Creator

Kinzer, Stephen

Format

1st ed.

Source

Brian Lamb Booknotes Collection

Gift of Brian Lamb, 2011.

Catalog record

Language

eng

Date

2001

Program air date: October 21, 2001

Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

George Mason University. Libraries. Special Collections & Archives

Text

Transcription of Annotations
Notes from front endpapers: "Turks are now turning toward Europe. - Istiklal - independence, p. 9. - 1950: first multiparty election; 3 coups - last one 1980. - National Security Council rules. - Military protection against fundamentalist rule. - Laws to allow reporters to be imprisoned; newspaper closed. - Devlet - my least favorite word. - Who are the young Turks? - Meze - small plates of food - raki, meyhane, p. 29. - Troy. - Ataturk; Dardanelles, p. 53. - Nargile salons, nargile smokers, p. 83. - Favorite ruins - Phaselis. - No Istanbul subway, can't serve parts of city because of ruins. - Jail: Batman near Syrian border; held overnight, thought I was a spy for PKK, p. 137. - Ataturk: 15 yrs. President; never out of Turkey, p. 157. - Korean War: 15,000 fought, 800 died - changed Turkey forever; never been that far away. - 100s of thousands to West Germany. - Suleyman Demirel, Bulent Ecevit, Turgut Ozal - 1983. - p. 177: 1) Camel fighting 2) horsemanship 3) oil wrestling. - p. 195: Bosporus: fell in love with it; swam it - 39 minutes east to west; palaces / weddings; world's busiest commercial waterway - 150 vessels a day. - Nazim Hikmet - poet, greatest literary figure, a communist - jailed for 13 years; some call him a traitor (p. 217). - Radio show - the blues; Answer the question: What are the blues? (p. 237)." -- Notes from back endpapers: "Earthquake: had profound political, social and cultural effect; deaths caused by corrupt political state; people close to Istanbul died, Greeks came to help. - Kurds: 30 million, half in Turkey. - PKK - Syria based. - Ocalan - Kurdish leader. - Turkey's most wanted fugitive. I had courtroom seat, May 31, 1999. - Ataturk: died at 58 of cirrhosis. - 3 fault lines divide the Turks, p. 225: 1) ethnic one dividing Turks from Kurds 2) religious one dividing Sunni Muslims from Alevis 3) political one dividing religion in public life from those against it. - 2/3 of Turks under 35. - Suleyman Demeril - Prime Min. for 7 terms since 1965, followed by being President - almost exclusively negative. - Turkey: candidate for European Union membership 1999. - Are they ready for full democracy? - Maybe by 2010-15. - 4 commandments, p. 234: 1) Kurds 2) Armenians 1915 3) Northern Cypress 4) Religion. - Ataturk's sweeping secular reforms - considered heretical by [?]. - Their celebration of history is selective - Armenia. - The Kurdish conflict is Turkey's festering wound. - Turkey's conundrum - contract between freedom and repression. - Army's role in a democracy. - 1999 earthquake - epicenter 50 miles from Istanbul. - In 1922 Ataturk's crushing defeat of the Greeks. - Turkey must change itself. - Are Turks Arabs? - The military's role. - Prime Minister Erbakan, 1995; military forced him to resign, p. 76. - The head scarf. - Turks in Germany, 2 1/2 million." -- Annotations by Brian Lamb in the margins and underlining of pertinent phrases throughout the book. - Examples; p. 53: "Trip to wall of Troy VI; "I want there to have been a Trojan War." - p. 193: "The generous and effective actions of ordinary people and private groups made millions of Turks realize, many for the first time, that they could take responsibility for their own lives...".

Subject

"Civil society--Turkey--History--20th century."

Relation

Original Booknotes interview

Rights

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