A Traveller's History of Turkey (Traveller's Histories Series)

A Traveller's History of Turkey offers a concise and readable account of the region from Prehistory right up to the present day. It covers everything from the legendary Flood of Noah, the early civilization of Catal Huyuk seven thousand years before Christ, through the treasures of Troy, Alexander the Great, the Romans, Seljuks, Byzantines and the Golden Age of the Sultans, to the twentieth century's great changes wrought by Kemal Ataturk and the strong position Turkey now holds in the world community.

Read Mary Lee Settle's "Turkish Reflections" to get a good introduction to Turkey. It is becoming a bit dated but is still much better than silly books like this.


Sided autors can not call themselves historian!   December 5, 1999
 15 out of 33 found this review helpful

ln the book Mr.Stoneman is claiming that Turkish army massacared 10000 kurds.And also about the greek invasion, he says turks killed and raped the greek and armenian inhabitants of izmir. The information he is providing is sided.lf we are talking about the history, the author has to have evidences and written records about the events he is reporting.lf he is just writting the stories he heard from the others it can not be accepted "true" immediately.lt seems that he did not make any research about the past at all, but he wrote the things just like he wanted. People can not change the past.Mr. Stoneman should be more responsible and correct the wrong information in his book.Or he has to rename his book:"A fictive story of turkey to the sided people who likes to believe that all turks are bad" Finally, general sound of the book is blaming turks on every issue.lt is %100 wrong that Turks did all the bad things.One should make researches and listen to both sides before coming to a conclusion.lf there is no written records, those events should not be mentioned in the serious! history books.Although he has the names of some books listed at the end of the book he is not refering to the certain pages of the books for his conclusions. All because of these the book is not professional at all.


IT IS NOT FAIR ON BEHALF OF TURKEY!   July 29, 1999
 6 out of 31 found this review helpful

This book is not optimistic


Too brief on modern Turkey   November 7, 1998
 10 out of 16 found this review helpful

There's too much - more than 60% of the book - devoted to the pre-Ottoman period. There's too much emphasis on ancient Turkey. To understand modern Turkey, it is essential to understand the Ottoman and the Attaturk legacies. Only about 30 pages are devoted to the Attaturk and post-Attaturk period. It is just not possible to understand the role of Islam, the military, the position of women, etc., in modern Turkey, without in-depth reference to the impact of the Ottomans and Attaturk to attitudes and values in the country.