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Two Book Launches!
Steven Cook
Council on Foreign Relations
False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and Violence in the New Middle East
~&~
Soner Cagaptay
Washington Institute for Near East Policy
The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey
~Moderated by~
School of Foreign Service,Georgetown University & Institute of Turkish Studies
Edward B. Bunn Intercultural Center (ICC)
McGhee Library
Georgetown University
Washington, DC
November 1, 2017
5:00pm-6:30pm
Join us for a discussion on the perils and opportunities that typify recent developments in the Near and Middle East. Following a moderated discussion between the two authors, the audience will have an opportunity to purchase copies of the cited works and have them signed.
False Dawn
Just over one hundred years ago, some parts of the Middle East were much more diverse then they are today. Peoples from different ethnicities, religions and linguistic groups lived together in the rather cosmopolitan port towns and port cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. The Western Anatolian seaboard, or the Aegean shores of today's Turkey was among such cosmopolitan regions. The Ottoman county of Foçateyn, or modern day Foça, with its two economically and demographically expanding port towns was among the principal examples of such regions. Most of these once diverse towns and cities, including Foça, were radically transformed during the first decade of the 20th century during the transition from the Ottoman Empire into the modern day Republic of Turkey.
The New Sultan
In a world of rising tensions between Russia and the United States, the Middle East and Europe, Sunnis and Shiites, Islamism and liberalism, Turkey is at the epicentre. And at the heart of Turkey is its right-wing populist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Since 2002, Erdoğan has consolidated his hold on domestic politics while using military and diplomatic means to solidify Turkey as a regional power. His crackdown has been brutal and consistent - thousands of journalists arrested, academics officially banned from leaving the country, university deans fired and many of the highest-ranking military officers arrested. In some senses, the nefarious and failed 2016 coup has given Erdoğan the licence to make good on his repeated promise to bring order and stability under a 'strongman'. Here, leading Turkish expert Soner Cagaptay will look at Erdoğan's roots in Turkish history, what he believes in and how he has cemented his rule, as well as what this means for the world. The book will also unpick the 'threats' Erdogan has worked to combat - from the liberal Turks to the Gulen movement, from coup plotters to Kurdish nationalists - all of which have culminated in the crisis of modern Turkey.
Steven A. Cook is Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is an expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as U.S.-Middle East policy.
Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute. He has written extensively on U.S.-Turkish relations, Turkish domestic politics, and Turkish nationalism, publishing in scholarly journals and major international print media.
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