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Benjamin Fortna, professor of history at the University of Arizona, will discuss writing the recently published book The Shortest History of Turkey: From the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic (Old Street Publishing). In just over 200 pages, the book covers the history of ‘Turkey’ from the emergence of the Ottoman Empire to the creation of the Turkish Republic and traces it up to the present day. This talk will address some of the challenges involved in trying to fit so many centuries into such a compressed format, appealing to a popular readership, and the recurring themes that emerge over the course of so many centuries.
About the speaker:
Benjamin C. Fortna is Professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the
University of Arizona and formerly Professor of the History of the Middle East at SOAS, University
of London. His research focuses on the history of the late Ottoman Empire and the early Turkish
Republic. His publications include The Shortest History of Turkey (Black, Inc, 2025/Old Street,
2026), The Circassian: A Life of Eşref Bey, Late Ottoman Insurgent and Special Agent (Hurst and
Oxford University Press, 2016), Childhood in the Late Ottoman Empire and After, ed. (Brill, 2016),
Learning to Read in the Late Ottoman Empire and the Early Turkish Republic (Palgrave Macmillan,
2010), and Imperial Classroom: Islam, Education and the State in the Late Ottoman Empire
(Oxford University Press, 2002). He has appeared on BBC programmes Who Do You Think You
Are? and The Ottomans: Europe’s Muslim Empire.
Image: Alamy
