Turkey Book Talk

Turkey Book Talk

William Armstrong

Episodes 250
Avg. Duration 35m
Activity Highly Active
Apple Rating 4.9 (56)
Since Sep 2016
Latest Episode Jun 2026

Publishing Details

Schedule
Every 2 Weeks
Format
Episodic
Consistency
100%
Hosting
feed.podbean.com

About This Podcast

Conversations with journalists, academics and writers on Turkey and its region. New episode every two weeks.

Explore Statistics

Recent Episodes

Doruk Erhan on the limits of Turkey's shift to autocracy

Jun 09, 2026 36m

Doruk Erhan on the crackdown on Turkey's main opposition party. Judicial operations on the CHP have led pundits to warn the country is shifting to a post-democratic system of arbitrary rule, but in…

Jennifer Hattam on writing the Lonely Planet guide to Turkey

May 26, 2026 33m

Istanbul-based journalist Jennifer Hattam on her work updating the Lonely Planet guide to Turkey. The conversation touches on the immense amount of work and miles that go into updating the guide, as…

Brett Wilson on the myth and reality of modern Turkey's religious reforms

May 12, 2026 39m

Brett Wilson on his article "Sufi Leaders in the early Turkish Republic: Profession, Privilege, and Persecution (1925-1950)". The piece studies the impact of the 1925 outlawing of Islamic religious…

Suzy Hansen on Turkey and an Istanbul neighborhood in the age of Erdoğan

Apr 28, 2026 48m

Suzy Hansen on “From Life Itself: Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdoğan” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The book focuses on Istanbul's Karagumruk to explore the everyday impact of…

Faisal Devji on the crisis of 'global Islam' in Turkey and elsewhere

Apr 14, 2026 34m

Faisal Devji on “Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam” (Yale University Press). The book argues that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Islam in countries including Turkey…

Ryan Gingeras on organised crime in Turkey's modern history

Mar 31, 2026 38m

Ryan Gingeras, author of “Mafia: A Global History” (Simon & Schuster) and “Heroin, Organized Crime, and the Making of Modern Turkey” (Oxford University Press), on the influence of criminal…

Mustafa Aksakal on World War I and the end of the Ottoman Empire

Mar 17, 2026 38m

Mustafa Aksakal, associate professor of history at Georgetown University, on “The War that Made the Middle East: World War I and the End of the Ottoman Empire” (Princeton University Press) Please…

Michelle Lynn Kahn on Turkish migration to Germany

Mar 03, 2026 30m

Michelle Lynn Kahn on “Foreign in Two Homelands: Racism, Return Migration and Turkish-German History” (Cambridge University Press). Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters…

Murat Yıldız on the Ottoman world of sports, modernisation and minorities

Feb 17, 2026 42m

Murat Yıldız, associate professor of history at Skidmore College, on “The Ottoman World of Sports: Refashioning Bodies, Men, and Communities in Late Imperial Istanbul” (University of Texas…

Berin Gür on the conquest of Istanbul in the Islamist-nationalist imagination

Feb 03, 2026 30m

Berin Gür on “The Conquest of Istanbul and the Manipulation of Architecture: The Islamist-Nationalist Rhetoric of Conquest and Melancholy” (Routledge). The book explores how the Ottoman conquest of…

Adnan Khan on the human toll of Turkey's importing of Europe's waste

Jan 20, 2026 37m

Journalist Adnan Khan on the spectacular growth of Turkey's plastic waste imports and the role of migrant labour in the sector. His work paints a grim portrait of how the EU-Turkey migration deal and…

Burcu Karahan on sexual freedom and women in late Ottoman fiction

Jan 06, 2026 32m

Burcu Karahan on her translation of “One Thousand and One Kisses: The Most Joyous and Flirtatious Stories” (Translation Attached). The book brings together 65 stories blending humour and eroticism,…

Mehmet Gurses on the transformation of Turkey's Kurdish issue

Dec 22, 2025 35m

Mehmet Gurses on his article “Turkey's Kurdish Conflict Transformed”, published in the Current History journal. The conversation places the PKK's emergence and transformations in a historical context…

Reuben Silverman on the rise and fall of Turkey's Democrat Party

Dec 09, 2025 41m

Reuben Silverman on “The Rise and Fall of Turkey's Democrat Party: The Cold War and Illiberalism, 1945–60” (Cambridge University Press). Today's AKP government is often placed in the lineage of the…

Seçil Daǧtaș on religious difference in Turkey's Hatay

Nov 25, 2025 38m

Seçil Daǧtaș on “Under the Same Sky: Everyday Politics of Religious Difference in Southern Turkey” (University of Pennsylvania Press). The book is an ethnographic study of “the social reproduction of…

Senem Aydin-Duzgit on foreign policy weaponisation in Turkish domestic politics

Nov 11, 2025 37m

Senem Aydın-Düzgit on her article “Foreign Policy as Domestic Politics in Populist Competitive Authoritarianism,” published in the South European Society and Politics journal. The conversation looks…

Nora Fisher Onar on Turkish political history beyond binaries

Oct 28, 2025 31m

Nora Fisher Onar on “Contesting Pluralism(s): Islamism, Liberalism, and Nationalism in Turkey and Beyond” (Cambridge University Press). The book challenges the common belief that a binary contest…

Sean Mathews on Greece's regional comeback amid rivalry with Turkey

Oct 14, 2025 39m

Sean Mathews on “The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and Return of the Near East” (Hurst). The book examines Greece's comeback as a regional player, arguing that this has been triggered in large…

Perin Gurel on the history of comparing Turkey and Iran in the West

Sep 30, 2025 36m

Perin Gurel on “Türkiye, Iran, and the Politics of Comparison: America's Wife, America's Concubine” (Cambridge University Press). The book explores the cultural history of Turkey–Iran comparisons in…

Gokhan Bacik on Turkey's citizenship-selling programme

Sep 16, 2025 31m

Gokhan Bacik on his article “Selling Citizenship in Turkey: Political Parties, Pragmatism, and Polarization,” recently published in the journal “Nationalism and Ethnic Politics”. The article examines…

Frequently Asked Questions

How many episodes does Turkey Book Talk have?

Turkey Book Talk has published 250 episodes since September 2016, covering topics in Arts, Books.

Is Turkey Book Talk still active?

Turkey Book Talk is currently highly active with new episodes every 2 weeks. Average episode length is 35m.

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