New Book by Nur Bilge Criss on Turkish-American Relations
Asst. Prof. Nur Bilge Criss of the Department of International Relations has recently coedited a book entitled "American Turkish Encounters: Politics and Culture, 1830-1989." The volume, whose other coeditors are Selçuk Esenbel, Tony Greenwood and Louis Mazzari, has been published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (2011).
Turkey and the United States have been critically important to each other since the beginning of the Cold War. The history of Turkish-American relations includes not only strategic, but also political, social, cultural and intellectual dimensions. While critical to understanding Turkish-American relations, these dimensions rarely surface in today's discourse, which reduces bilateral relations to issues currently being contested. In reality, the encounter between East and West embodied in Turkish-American interactions ranges from the official and diplomatic, to unofficial and informal exchanges at the social and individual level; such interactions, while most often compatible and friendly, have occasionally been less so. In this volume, authors from both countries have used original research to develop a variety of perspectives that will enable both specialists and general readers to appreciate the many facets of this complex relationship.
Providing a historical perspective on a timely topic, "American Turkish Encounters" has already made its mark: the US Consulate in Istanbul has designated the book as required reading in the US Foreign Service Education Program.