Recommended Books & Films

Turkey's past is so densely packed with history's most critical eras that if you don't do your homework before you go, you'll wind up simply wandering through pretty piles of rocks and stone.

Books

At the very least, pick up a copy of A Traveller's History of Turkey (Interlink Books, 1998), by Richard Stoneman, a readable overview of Turkey's history from A to Z that will fit in your back pocket. Take it with you, as Stoneman provides a handy reference of ancient sites in the appendix.

A Short History of Byzantium (Vintage Books, 1998), John Julius Norwich's condensed version of a three-volume epic, actually entertains while faithfully covering the life of one of the most enduring empires on Earth. Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire (William Morrow & Co., 1988), by Lord Kinross, has established itself as the definitive guidebook on Turkey during the Ottoman Empire. In a thoroughly readable prose, Kinross leads you through history while providing the contexts for understanding Turkey today. Another book by Kinross is Atatürk, the Rebirth of a Nation (titled Atatürk: A Biography of Mustafa Kemal, Father of Modern Turkey in the U.S. and currently out of print), also respected as the handbook on the man who single-handedly reconstructed a nation. Also see Andrew Mango's more recent Atatürk (John Murray Pubs, 2004).

Constantinople: City of the World's Desire, 1453-1924 (Griffin Trade Paperback, 1998), by Philip Mansel, provides an accurate and colorful history of the Ottoman Empire while sprinkling the pages with attention-grabbing little morsels of lesser-known trivia. Turkey Unveiled: A History of Modern Turkey (Overlook Press, 1999) was written by Hugh and Nicole Pope, two journalists working for the Wall Street Journal and Le Monde, respectively. In Turkey Unveiled, the Popes give us insights on the most divisive issues of Turkey today. A more recent analysis of modern problems and trends in Turkey written from a Western insider's point of view is provided by Stephen Kinzer, former Istanbul bureau chief of the New York Times, in Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2001).

Keep your eyes peeled in used-book stores both at home and in Turkey for old versions of George Bean's series, Lycian Turkey, Aegean Turkey, Turkey's Southern Shore, and Turkey Beyond the Meander (last published by John Murray Ltd., 1989-90), which comprise the masterwork collection of archaeological guidebooks on Turkey, but are unfortunately out of print. Filling the void is the new and improved printing of Dr. Ekrem Akurgal's Ancient Civilizations and Ruins of Turkey (Net Turistik Yayinlar San. Tic. A.S. Istanbul, 2001), first printed in 1969 and currently the definitive guidebook to archaeological sites in Turkey.

Walking is a great way to see rural Turkey, and Kate Clow shows you the way in her books. The Lycian Way (Upcountry Ltd., 2000) is a detailed mapping out of the ancient footpaths and roads between Fethiye and Antalya, with details on the history, archaeological sites, and wildlife along the way. She's even considerate enough to let us know how out-winded we can expect to get. A collection of 20 maps is included, so although the full trek would take at least 4 to 6 weeks, you can use this guidebook for a less ambitious day trip. For information on the trail, log on to www.lycianway.com. Also, check out St Paul Trail (Upcountry Ltd., 2004), which is just as detailed, with color photos and maps chronicling the way taken by St. Paul on his missionary journeys through Asia Minor.

World War I buffs will want to show up on the battlefields at Gallipoli armed with a copy of Tim Travers Gallipoli 1915 (Battles & Campaigns) (Tempus Publishing, 2004). Aussies should hunt down a copy of Gallipoli (Macmillan Australia, 2001), by Les Carlyon and available in Australia.

Coverage of terrorist actions committed by militant Muslims has prejudiced much of the Western world against anything Islamic, causing many tourists to Turkey to be unnecessarily apprehensive. Teach Yourself Islam (NTC Publishing Group, 1994), by Ruqaiyyah Maqsood, gets to the soul of the religion by providing explanations of beliefs and analyzing the purposes behind the rituals in a straightforward and absorbing manner. What Went Wrong (Oxford University Press, 2001), a balanced and scholarly work by Bernard Lewis, guides readers through the transformation of Islam from a cultural, scientific, and economic powerhouse to a significantly tarnished underdog. Finish off this reading list with What's Right With Islam (Harper San Francisco, 2004), in which Feisal Abdul Rauf argues how the violence perceived by the West to be at the heart of terrorism has, in fact, nothing to do with religion and everything to do with economics and politics.

Jeremy Seal's A Fez of the Heart: Travels Around Turkey in Search of a Hat (Harvest Books, 1996) and Mary Lee Settle's Turkish Reflections (Touchstone Books, 1992) are two excellent travelogues that have established themselves as de facto reads for anyone interested in Turkey. Turkish Reflections, although accused of being outdated, succeeds in providing an accurate portrayal of the Turkish people and vivid images of the physical landscape. Interesting little snippets of trivia are sprinkled throughout the text and are especially entertaining as supplements to a historical perspective, but as a read, may be more suitable for post-voyage reminiscences. In A Fez of the Heart, Jeremy Seal succeeds in capturing the sights and smells of his destinations while ostensibly on the hunt for the legacy left by the fez. Seal tosses in bits of history while you're not looking and throws in unexpected episodes of hilarity that will garner you unwanted attention in public places.

For Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005) is a personal reflection on life growing up in the "melancholy" of an Istanbul in transition. Descriptions of faded apartment buildings, and the tension between tradition and convention are as much a self-portrait as a window into the city at the crossroads of civilization.

For a modern woman's view of what it's like to work, live, and travel in Turkey, pick up the recently compiled and released Tales From the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey (Citlembik, 2005; to be published in the U.S. in 2006). It's a compilation of essays, stories, and travelogues by various non-Turkish women.

In fiction, obviously, the most insightful reads will be those books written by native Turks, and in recent years, several Turkish authors have created mesmerizing works of fiction set within a vivid Turkish reality. Orhan Pamuk made quite a splash in the United States; his novels The White Castle (Vintage, 1998), The Black Book (Harvest Books, 1996), The New Life (Vintage, 1998) and the New York Times literary prize winners Snow (Vintage, 2005) and Istanbul: Memories of a City (Knopf, 2005) can easily be found in bookstores. Irfan Orga's Portrait of a Turkish Family (Hippocrene Books, 1989) is a poignant account of a simple Turkish family caught between the Ottoman Empire and Atatürk's Republic. Journalist and leading satirist Aziz Nesin spent much of his life in prison, where he penned a large portion of his highly biographical essays. The University of Texas Center for Middle Eastern Studies has put some of his works online, which provide colorful images of growing up in a traditional Turkish family at the beginning of the 20th century (http://menic.utexas.edu/menic/cmes/pub/iboy/iboy.html; you may have to key in each successive link individually).

Films

The Turks rigorously resent the unfair characterization of Turkish people in the 1978 film Midnight Express, a movie that has been accused of encouraging prejudices in Westerners. They point out that the movie was financed by Greek cinema magnate Kirk Kerkorian and filmed using actors of predominantly Greek and Armenian origin -- two nations notorious for their bad blood with Turkey. Nevertheless, it's a movie classic, it did win an Oscar, and it was set in Istanbul.

Gallipoli (1981), with a young, spellbinding Mel Gibson, is a movie classic that brings the World War I battle down to a human level. This movie is a must-see for anyone making the trip to the battlegrounds.

Midnight Express: Fact or Fiction? -- The 1978 movie Midnight Express, directed by Alan Parker and scripted by Oliver Stone, elicits strong resentment in Turkey for the portrayal of Billy Hayes, who, in spite of a well-publicized crackdown on drug smuggling, took a dumb risk and lost. The movie, which won the director an Oscar, is a hideously graphic (and mostly fictional) account of human rights violations in a Turkish prison. The truth is that the real Billy Hayes acknowledges the inaccuracy of many of the scenes in the movie; he was in a low-security prison, and no guard was killed in order for him to escape. Actually, the Turkish government released him.

The name of the movie derives from the midnight train service from Istanbul to Edirne, which, at the time, briefly traveled through Greek territory. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Turkish government reacted to international criticism (particularly from the U.S.) of its harsh sentencing guidelines with a discreet and diplomatic trick. Foreigners convicted of drug-related offenses were divested of their passports and released during appeal. Then they were quietly ushered onto the Midnight Express train, where, once in Greece (and with the complicity of Greek guards on the train), they hopped off the train and were jailed until they could obtain new passports from their consulates. The Turks were thus able to maintain a hard-line stance without jeopardizing diplomatic relations.