Reflections of  "Crescent & Star: Turkey Between Two Words" in the US Media:

The below quotes selected from various reviews and interviews in the US Media  about the book "Crescent & Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds" by Stephen KINZER,  published by Farrar, Straus and Groux, in New York, 2001.

"Turkey, with 65 million people and a strategic location between Europe and Asia, is an important country that's not well understood in the West. Crescent & Star, Stephen Kinzer's study of Turkey's history and politics, goes a good ways toward redressing that. It's a thoughtful study of the wrenching problems that hold Turkey back -- and it's an engaging read to book.

...
In the early days of his posting, Turkey seemed ''a jewel of a country poised on the brink of greatness.'' Later, however, he found its future direction to be more murky and began wondering whether his temporary home was ''condemned to remain an unfulfilled dream.''  --Business Week (October 1, 2001)

"Kinzer's  adventures in Turkey gave him in-depth knowledge and real appreciation for the country and its potential... He makes a powerful case that this is a country that we must watch." --Chicago Tribune

"This critical but affectionate portrait of Turkey's recent history throws considerable light on the complex ways of this strategically important ally of the West." --The Economist

 
"Turkey has political parties, free elections and a parliament, but it is actually run by a parallel government, the military. The army consider itself the heir to the principles of Ataturk, promoter of secularism and a European-style modernity, defender of the unity of the nation and the state. Young officers are imbued with a sense of personal responsibility for the future of the country.

...
Steven Kinzer gives an unusually candid account of the state of Turkey;s politics and the army's role... He is lyrical, even romantic, about the potential of a forceful, creative and (mostly) free people to realize their own implied glorious future." --Book Of The Times, by Ria M. LAPIDUS, New York Times.

"Americans can no longer plead ignorance about modern Turkey . . . An excellent, insightful work."
--Library Journal

 
"A lively, engaging report on modern-day Turkey . ... Kinzer, former Istanbul bureau chief for the New York Times, is unabashed in his enthusiasm for the Turkish people and their rough-edged, yet vibrant, centuries-old society.  This quality energizes his consideration of Turkish history as reflected by their 21st-century dilemmas . . . Kinzer's well-executed travelogue addresses the 'striking contrast between freedom and repression [that] crystallizes Turkey's conundrum,' and will satisfy anyone curious about the future of this vibrant, volatile society." --Kirkus Reviews

"A powerful, directed, and important book . . . An impressive achievement."  --Middle East Quarterly

"Kinzer's journalistic eye serves him well as he goes beyond the political, describing, for instance, the importance and allure of the narghile salon, where Turks smoke water pipes . . . . Readers who want a one-volume guide to this fascinating country need look no further."  --Publishers Weekly

 "Unlike Germans, whose diverse country now includes many young ethnic Turks born to "guest workers," we lack a significant Turkish minority. Unlike Europeans, who wondered for centuries, as Stephen Kinzer writes, "whether the Ottomans would sweep into Paris and claim the entire continent for Islam," Americans never experienced the Ottoman Empire, or its successor, the Republic of Turkey, as a threat on our doorstep.

... 
Perhaps alone in all of Turkey," Kinzer writes, "Mustafa Kemal believed that Turks could become everything they had never been: modern, secular, prosperous, and, above all, truly European. Earthquake, bomb, whirlwind, cyclone, tornado, tidal wave _ none of these metaphors can capture the force of Kemal's impact on his nation." -- The Philadelphia Inquirer, by Carlin Romano

"CNN: President Bush and members of the coalition have said repeatedly that this war is not on Islam, but on terrorists. In reality, how is that playing out in Muslim countries?

KINZER: The Muslim world is a phrase that in itself is misleading. We're talking about more than 50 countries with a variety of forms of government. If you were to place these countries on a spectrum, from the most radical, to the most secular and modern, certainly, the country on the most radical end would be Afghanistan. The country on the other end of the spectrum, the Muslim country closest to universal ideals of democracy and individual rights, is Turkey. In a place like Turkey, there is naturally sympathy for Muslims in other countries. At the same time, however, there is a recognition of the extremes to which religious terror can be taken, and a great desire to help the West resist and defeat it."
CNN, Stephen Kinzer: Differences between Western and Islamic cultures October 9, 2001

"Best of all, Kinzer introduces us to one of the greatest of 20^th century poets, Nazim Hikmet (1902-1963), a Communist who spent most of his adult life in Turkish jails and died in Moscow, whose passionately patriotic verse was banned in his homeland for years.

Kinzer revels in the generous contradictions of a country in which cybernet yuppies have evil-eye amulets dangling from the rearview mirrors of their BMW's, and Courvoisier-swilling prime ministers belong to mystical dervish sects. But he is continually frustrated by Turkey's inability to achieve its democratic potential.

...
For painstakingly honest advice as to what needs fixing in order for Turkey yet to become 'a light unto the nations', 'Crescent  and Star' cannot be beat."
--The New Young Turks, by Fernanda Eberstadt, New York Times Book Review, October 21, 2001

---The Transformation of Turkey: From Islamic Empire to Modern State
Aired on PBS on 11/8/01
http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript976.html


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