This book is about the principal writings that shaped the perception of Turkey for informed readers in English, from Edward Gibbon’s positing of imperial Decline and Fall to the proclamation of the Turkish Republic (1923), illustrating how Turkey has always been a part of the modern British and European experience. It is a great sweep of a story: from Gibbon as standard textbook, through Lord Bryon the pro-Turkish poet, and Benjamin Disraeli the Romantic novelist of all things Eastern, followed by John Buchan’s Greenmantle First World War espionage fantasies, and then Manchester Guardian reporter Arnold Toynbee narrating the fight for Turkish independence.
Table of Content
Introduction: Bag and Baggage.- 1. Edward Gibbon’s Eastern Question, 1776-1788.- 2. Lord Byron, Turkophile, and his Grand Tour to the East, 1809-1811.- 3. Disraeli’s Eastern Career, 1830-1854.- 4. Disraeli, the Bulgarian Horrors, and the Reorientation of the Ottoman Empire, 1854-1880.- 5. Greenmantle at the Ministry of Information: John Buchan, the First World War and the Turks.- 6. Arnold Toynbee on the Quai at Smyrna, 1921-2.- 7. Ernest Hemingway on the Quai at Smyrna, 1921-2.- Conclusion: Turkey-in-Europe; Turkey-in-Asia; Turkey-in-Britain.
About the author
David S. Katz is Director of the Lessing Institute for European History and Civilization at Tel Aviv University, Israel where he has taught since 1978. He also holds the Abraham Horodisch Chair for the History of Books.
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