Tweet
Minneapolis Star Tribune , MN
June 5 2005
Business Books
By Hugh Pope Overlook, $35
June 6, 2005 BIZBOOKS0606
Sons of the Conquerors
The Rise of the Turkic World
The emergence of a clutch of newly independent Muslim Turkic states
after the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991 stirred up an
intense, if short-lived, interest in the Turkic presence that
stretches from the outer edges of China all the way to the Balkans.
At its core lay Turkey, whose ready, if wobbly, democracy, its
free-market economy and its own brand of moderate Islam could serve
as a model, Western strategists hoped.
Fired by visions of leading this Turkic world, imams, entrepreneurs
and language teachers all poured into the former Soviet republics.
But their fervor was soon tempered by Russia's continued political
and cultural grip over its onetime colonies. With the exception of
tiny landlocked Kyrgyzstan, each of these countries is still ruled by
its corrupt former communist dictator, its every potential
unfulfilled. Indeed, modern Turks often seem to have more in common
with their Christian Greek neighbors than they do with their ethnic
cousins in Azerbaijan.
Hugh Pope, a veteran Istanbul-based correspondent of the Wall Street
Journal and co-author with Nicole Pope of an unrivaled history of
modern Turkey, "Turkey Unveiled," might agree. Yet, in his ambitious
new book, "Sons of the Conquerors," Pope seeks to unearth the common
strands that link the 140 million Turkic speakers across the globe.
In a quest that takes him from the grim battlefronts of
Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan to secret
encounters with Turkic-speaking Uighur nationalists in China, he has
produced the most comprehensive work on the Turks today. His book is
also very timely; Turkey prepares to open membership talks with the
European Union later this year.
Part travelogue, part history and part political analysis, "Sons of
the Conquerors" overflows with hilarious anecdotes and distinctive
characters that only someone who speaks Turkish, Farsi and Arabic as
effortlessly as Pope could dig up.
June 5 2005
Business Books
By Hugh Pope Overlook, $35
June 6, 2005 BIZBOOKS0606
Sons of the Conquerors
The Rise of the Turkic World
The emergence of a clutch of newly independent Muslim Turkic states
after the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991 stirred up an
intense, if short-lived, interest in the Turkic presence that
stretches from the outer edges of China all the way to the Balkans.
At its core lay Turkey, whose ready, if wobbly, democracy, its
free-market economy and its own brand of moderate Islam could serve
as a model, Western strategists hoped.
Fired by visions of leading this Turkic world, imams, entrepreneurs
and language teachers all poured into the former Soviet republics.
But their fervor was soon tempered by Russia's continued political
and cultural grip over its onetime colonies. With the exception of
tiny landlocked Kyrgyzstan, each of these countries is still ruled by
its corrupt former communist dictator, its every potential
unfulfilled. Indeed, modern Turks often seem to have more in common
with their Christian Greek neighbors than they do with their ethnic
cousins in Azerbaijan.
Hugh Pope, a veteran Istanbul-based correspondent of the Wall Street
Journal and co-author with Nicole Pope of an unrivaled history of
modern Turkey, "Turkey Unveiled," might agree. Yet, in his ambitious
new book, "Sons of the Conquerors," Pope seeks to unearth the common
strands that link the 140 million Turkic speakers across the globe.
In a quest that takes him from the grim battlefronts of
Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan to secret
encounters with Turkic-speaking Uighur nationalists in China, he has
produced the most comprehensive work on the Turks today. His book is
also very timely; Turkey prepares to open membership talks with the
European Union later this year.
Part travelogue, part history and part political analysis, "Sons of
the Conquerors" overflows with hilarious anecdotes and distinctive
characters that only someone who speaks Turkish, Farsi and Arabic as
effortlessly as Pope could dig up.