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 Ataturk, and repeated political interventions by the military, which sees itself as the guardian of Ataturk'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.

Introduction

1) People and geography

2) The break with the Ottoman past

3) The post-war era

4) Democracy and civil rights

5) Foreign policy

6) Economy

7) Contemporary politics

8) Islam and nationalism

9) Society and culture

10) Epilogue: Turkey finding its voice

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

Andrew Finkel , United States

Andrew Finkel is a journalist who has been based in Turkey for twenty years. His reporting has appeared in The Economist, Time, The Daily Telegraph, The Times of London, and CNN.

"There are only a few people in Turkey who can combine the critical eye of the outsider with the compassion of the insider. Finkel is one of them." -- Joost Lagendijk, former joint chairman of the Turkey-EU Parliamentarians delegation and Senior Advisor at the Istanbul Policy Center of Sabanci University