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INTRODUCTION

Turkey is a country with a multiple identity, poised uneasily between East and West – though, despite the tourist brochure cliché, it is less a bridge between the two than a battleground, a buffer zone whose various parts have been invaded and settled from every direction since the beginning of recorded history. The country is now keen to be accepted on equal terms by the West: long the only NATO member in the Middle East region and a major recipient of US military aid, it is now also vigorously pursuing EU membership as a means of assuring future prosperity and democracy. But despite Turkish involvement with Europe dating back to the twelfth century, it is by no stretch of the imagination a thoroughly Western nation, and the contradictions – and fascinations – persist.

Turkey is a vast country – France would fit within its boundaries with plenty of room to spare – incorporating characteristics of Middle Eastern and Aegean, as well as Balkan and trans-Caucasian, countries. Mosques coexist with Orthodox churches; Roman theatres and temples crumble alongside ancient Hittite cities; and dervish ceremonies or gypsy festivals are as much a part of the social landscape as classical music concerts or delirious sports fans. The one constant in all this – and one of the things that makes Turkey such a rewarding place to travel – is the Turkish people, whose reputation for friendliness and hospitality is richly deserved; indeed you risk causing offence by refusing to partake of it, and any transaction can be the springboard for further acquaintance. Close to the bigger resorts or tourist attractions, much of this is undoubtedly mercenary, but in most of the country the warmth and generosity is genuine – all the more amazing when recent Turkish history has demonstrated that outsiders usually only bring trouble in their wake.

Politically, modern Turkey was a bold experiment, founded on the remaining Anatolian kernel of the Ottoman Empire, once among the world’s largest, and longest-lasting, imperial states. The country arose from defeat after World War I, almost entirely the creation of a single man of demonic energy and vision – Kemal Atatürk. The Turkish War of Independence, fought against those victorious Allies intending to pursue imperialistic designs on Ottoman territory, has (with slightly stretched analogy – Turkey was never a colony) often been seen as the prototype for all Third World "wars of liberation". It led to an explicitly secular Republic, though one in which almost all of the inhabitants are at least nominally Muslim (predominantly Sunni).

Turkey’s heritage as home to the caliphate and numerous dervish orders, plus contemporary Islamist movements, still often deflects its moral compass south and east rather than northwest. Turks, except for a small minority in the southeast, are not Arabs, and loathe being mistaken for them; despite a heavy lacing of Persian and Arabic words, the Turkish language alone, unrelated to any neighbouring one except Azeri, is sufficient to set its speakers apart. The population is, however, in spite of official efforts to enforce uniformity, remarkably heterogeneous ethnically. When the Ottoman Empire imploded early in the twentieth century, large numbers of Muslim Slavs, Kurds, Greeks, Albanians, Crimean Tatars, Azeris, Daghestanlis, Abkhazians and Circassians – to name only the most numerous non-Turkic groups – streamed into Anatolia, the safest refuge in an age of anti-Ottoman Nationalism. This process has continued in recent years from formerly Soviet or Eastern Bloc territories (including even a few Christian Turks or Gaugaz from Moldavia), so that the diversity of the people endures, constituting one of the surprises of travel in Turkey.

There are equally large disparities in levels of development and income. Istanbul boasts clubs as expensive and exclusive as any in New York or London, while town-centre shops are full of imported luxury goods, yet in the chronically backward eastern interior you’ll encounter standards and modes of living scarcely changed from a century ago. Following a severe crash in early 2001, the Turkish economy languishes on the ropes and the country is heavily in debt, threatening the modernization process begun during the late nineteenth century. It’s make-or-break time for a country aspiring to full EU membership: has Westernization struck deep roots in the culture, or does it extend no further than a mobile-phone- and credit-card-equipped urban élite?

Turkey has been continuously inhabited and fought over for close on ten millennia, as the layer-cake arrangement of many archeological sites and the numerous fortified heights testify. The juxtaposed ancient monuments mirror the bewildering succession of states – Hittite, Urartian, Phrygian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Armeno-Georgian – that held sway here before the twelfth century. There is also, of course, an overwhelming number of graceful Islamic monuments dating from the eleventh century onwards, as well as magnificent city bazaars, still holding their own despite the encroachments of chain stores and shopping malls. The country’s modern architecture is less pleasing, the consequence both of government policy since 1950 and of returned overseas workers eager to invest their earnings in real estate – an ugliness manifest at the coastal resorts, where the beaches are rarely as good as the tourist-board hype. Indeed it’s inland Turkey – Asiatic expanses of mountain, steppe, lake, even cloud forest – that may leave a more vivid memory, especially when accented by some crumbling kervansaray, mosque or castle. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Turkey is smooth with the rough guide
As always with the rough guide series, it hits the mark.What you need to know and points in the right direction for adventure.

Excellent guide for budget travelers
We travel extensively all over the world and have consistently found the Rough Guide series to be the most in-depth, accurate, an useful.The guide to Turkey is no exception.On our trip last year, we used the Rough Guide to find many exceptional and cheap restaurants, often eating for less than $5 a meal for two.When we did not use the book to locate a place to eat, we were disappointed with overpriced, unimpressive fare.Likewise, the hotel we selected in Instanbul using the Rough Guide was exactly as the book described: well located (half-mile from Aya Sofia), incredible value, friendly staff, free Turkish tea, nice free breakfast, and very friendly staff.Venturing out of Instanbul without a car I think would be difficult, as the book points out.I think that is a fair warning, and the authors of the book should not be criticized for cautioning travelers that public transport outside of the cities is somewhat lacking.Another benefit of the Rough Guide is that it often includes interesting sites a little off the beaten path that other travelers often miss and complete enough descriptions to help you appreciate them.

I won't buy Rough Guide again...
This was my wife and my second visit to Turkey. We're budget travelers/backpackers. The first time (1 month), we used the Lonely Planet, which wasn't great either. This time (6 weeks) we tried the Rough Guide. What a mistake! Here are some of the problems we had:
- Everything is written as if you have your own car. Lip service is paid to public/alternative forms of transport, but rarely is any useful information given.
- The author(s) must have had their own car, or relied heavily on taxis, because walking even a kilometer seems anathemic: the book frequently suggests that you bargain hard for a taxi if arriving someplace at odd hours, despite the fact that the city center and hotels area kilometer or less away. This pattern is repeated with sites as well: the author's favorite phrase must be: "really only practiable if you have your own transport..." Even a moderately fit person could get to many places that were described this way, even if you only walk 1km/hour.
- Consistent with the above, the author obviously zipped around on a $100+/day budget, because the budget accomidation options are poorly researched, often placed wrong on maps, or absent entirely.
- No sense of the relative merit of sites is given. If you want to wander aimlessly, and, in my opinion, waste your time, this book is fine. However, Turkey is large enough that even with plenty of time one can only hope to cover a fraction of the worthwhile places to visit: hence, we need some indication of the better places to spend our time.
- The overall tone of the book is seems to be geared towards a vacationer who wants to mix a little history with beach and booze. It seemed that the most important thing to note about a town was: where can you find liquor? What's the hip place? I would have liked to see more along the lines of interesting places to eat: for example, "this popular pastanesi is Antakya is visited for its..."
- Lack of a map for towns that many travelers will need to visit. Fortunately, many tourist office will have a town plan, assuming you can catch them during business hours. But no map for Gaziantep?? Give me a break. (The town is a transport hub, and worth visiting anyway for the stunning -- newly unearthed -- mosaics in the museum; far better than the renowned ones in Antakya.)

These are the big problems, the other minor inaccuracies and inconsistencies were so frequent that I became accustomed to them. At least now I know what to expect from Rough Guides!

Most Useful Guide to a Wonderful Country
This is the best single guidebook we've found for Turkey. We escort small groups to Turkey...and the Rough Guide is consistently the best single reference for general and historical information. Combined with the Blue Guide to Turkey, it's easy to plan your trip. As usual with the Rough Guides, it has a lot of information for many types of travelers without sacrificing cultural and historical details. Well organized, with good maps (much better than the Lonely Planet series).We've made 5 trips to Turkey now, and find something new from this book each time.

worse than no guide at all
We were in Istanbul recently and purchased this guide to help us get around.It was worse than useless.There wasn't enough information cautioning us against using the taxis (which are notorious for ripping off tourists), and the guide didn't offer much helpful advice on using the bus, except to say that it wasn't safe.After getting really ripped off by a cab driver, we figured out the bus system on our own and found it to be clean, safe, efficient, and reliable--obviously regular Turks use this, no problem.Much nicer, in fact, than taking the bus in most U.S. cities.To make things worse, the restaurant reviews were out of date--of 2 Chinese restaurants recommended by this guide, one had gone out of business some time ago, and the other, said to be "popular with the local Chinese community," seemed to be entirely staffed by non-Chinese Turks who served lousy food.I especially disliked the guide author's tendency to use Turkish words without translating them, especially when those words were not in the glossary in the back of the book and were not in the index either.Finally, the maps were not very good and difficult to find in the book. ... Read more

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486 pp. ... Read more

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The third edition of the Historical Dictionary of Turkey explores the history of this fascinating country through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on important persons, places, events, and institutions, as well as on significant political, economic, social, and cultural aspects. ... Read more

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The Tarikhnamah is a history of the world and the oldest surviving work of Persian prose. This book examines it as a political and cultural document and why it became such an influential work in the Islamic world. ... Read more

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Webster's bibliographic and event-based timelines are comprehensive in scope, covering virtually all topics, geographic locations and people. They do so from a linguistic point of view, and in the case of this book, the focus is on "Turkeys," including when used in literature (e.g. all authors that might have Turkeys in their name). As such, this book represents the largest compilation of timeline events associated with Turkeys when it is used in proper noun form. Webster's timelines cover bibliographic citations, patented inventions, as well as non-conventional and alternative meanings which capture ambiguities in usage. These furthermore cover all parts of speech (possessive, institutional usage, geographic usage) and contexts, including pop culture, the arts, social sciences (linguistics, history, geography, economics, sociology, political science), business, computer science, literature, law, medicine, psychology, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology and other physical sciences. This "data dump" results in a comprehensive set of entries for a bibliographic and/or event-based timeline on the proper name Turkeys, since editorial decisions to include or exclude events is purely a linguistic process. The resulting entries are used under license or with permission, used under "fair use" conditions, used in agreement with the original authors, or are in the public domain. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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One of the most central questions in European politics today is the complex relationship between Turkey and the European Union. To better understand the controversies and ambiguities aroused by this issue it is necessary to go back in history. In 1529 and 1683, the conquering armies of the Ottoman Empire appeared at the gates of Vienna, threatening to overrun central Europe. But in recent years Turkey, with its 70 million mostly Muslim inhabitants, has been seeking closer integration with Western Europe, knocking at the door of Brussels. The ensuing debates on the possible Turkish membership of the European Union frequently evoke attitudes seemingly conditioned by an historical memory of one form or another, often originating centuries ago.The essays in this volume examine the assumptions, images and stereotypes developed about the 'Other' through the long historical relationship, focusing especially on European images of 'the Turk'. They also explore the interaction of the two parties at different times and in different geographical locations.Chronologically, they range from the origins of the 'East/West controversy' in classical times, to the present question concerning the future relationship of Turkey and 'Europe'. This volume provides a valuable source of knowledge for those interested in the persistence, as well as in the transformation, of basic notions through history, and in seeking a deeper under standing of how present day attitudes and arguments are related to historical memory. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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The persistent potential for large scale natural disasters has become a real concern for the Turkish government since the late 1990s, which ultimately led to the establishment of the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP). Among the main rationale of the creation of the TCIP were a grave government fiscal exposure to natural disasters and a disproportionately low level of catastrophe insurance penetration for such a disaster-prone country. Since the commencement of this program in 2000, the TCIP has provided coverage to more than 2 million households, being by far the largest insurance program in the country. In four years, the TCIP has managed to become one of the most trusted brand names in the Turkish insurance industry, and one of the largest catastrophe insurance pools in the world. Its success has also brought an international recognition, inspiring more than a dozen of countries world wide. The TCIP experience has also been a watershed for the World Bank as it has led to a rethinking of the roles of ex ante risk management relative to ex post donor support. This book presents the main technical imperatives and challenges in the development and the implementation of the TCIP and shows how a public-private partnership may be the way forward in the financing of natural disasters. If offers valuable advise and guidelines to policymakers involved in the development of catastrophe insurance programs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

educating the Turkish about the need
If you are an American, and live in an earthquake region, you have probably dealt with issues of insurance. But the American experience is far better than that of Turkey. Which lacked affordable earthquake insurance for much of its population. With catastrophic results in recent years. The book explains an attempt to remediate this sorry state of matters. By the forming of an insurance pool,that basically acts as an insurerof first resort for many Turks.

We see how the fund had to explain in a marketing campaign the need for insurance to the Turkish public. And how there was a gradual increase in public confidence in the viability of the entire concept. Political tensions are also studied, exemplified by minimal support from the major parties. It is unclear why this has been so. ... Read more

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This book is part of the Our Name in History series, a collection of fascinating facts and statistics, alongside short historical commentary, created to tell the story of previous generations who have shared this name.The information in this book is a compendium of research and data pulled from census records, military records, ships' logs, immigrant and port records, as well as other reputable sources. Topics include:

• Name Meaning and Origin
• Immigration Patterns and Census Detail
• Family Lifestyles
• Military Service History
• Comprehensive Source Guide, for future research

Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1854 edition by Hurst and Blackett, London. ... Read more