Ataturk biography book
Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey
July 21, 2021
Andrew Mango is a professional historian who has written a book for other professional historians. Hailed as the "definitive biography" of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, it is marked by the strengths and weaknesses of that genre. On the one hand, it's very well-researched, very detailed and very exacting with respect to the likely truthfulness of the sources cited. On the other hand, it's overly detailed, it follows a rigid chronological form, keeps up an unvarying tempo, and is quite boring. Mango is a historian who can't tell a story to save his life. Nor is the book generally very analytical about the man, his country, or his incredible times. For the most part, it's a dry recitation of facts and events. You should only read this book if you have a deep and abiding interest in modern Turkish history and want to know the gritty details.
Having said all that, here's the rough summary of the story:
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is a revered figure in Turkey. His statues grace many city squares, his photo hangs on the wall of every government office. He is a sort of George Washington and Napoleon all rolled into one, and because he only died in 1938, he is still within the memory of elderly Turks still living.
His accomplishments lay in many fields. On the military front, he first came to national attention as one of the commanding generals in the Battle of Gallipolli in 1915, when the Turks defeated an invading force of British, French, Australians and New Zealanders, with very heavy casualties on both sides. Coming in the midst of World War I, a war where Turkish victories were few and far between, it helped salvage Turkish national pride.
In the wake of the loss of the war, the Ottoman Empire was largely dismembered by the victorious Allies, with pieces going to various Balkan countries, Greece, Armenia, and assorted newly created Middle Eastern states controlled by the French and British. The empire was reduced to a rump that was soon to be called simply "Turkey". Even that rump was endangered when the Greek Army invaded the Aegean coast and started pushing inland into Anatolia.
In the midst of this disastrous situation, Ataturk seized the initiative in organizing senior military leaders along with some civilian ones to put together a new regime, completely parallel to the still-functioning Ottoman administration under the Sultan in Istanbul, which was under the thumb of the occupying Allies. Setting up a de facto new capital inland in Ankara, Ataturk steadily eroded the credibility, authority and political power of the Ottoman regime. It was this new government that put together the army that eventually stopped the Greek advance in August 1921 at the Battle of Sakarya.
Biding his time, by one year later in 1922 Ataturk felt strong enough to attack the Greek forces and start pushing them out of Anatolia. In the two-day battle of Dumlupinar, he routed the Greek army, which retreated in disorder to the Aegean coast and was soon evacuated back to Greece. The Turkish army followed hot on its heels, and retook the main coastal city of Izmir (known as Smyrna to the Greeks). Allied warships then evacuated over 200,000 civilians, almost the entire Greek population of the city, as the city burned. Very soon, well over two millennia of Greek presence in Anatolia came to an end.
This spectacular and unexpected victory re-established Turkey as a serious power that the wartime Allies, who still occupied Istanbul and various other parts of the country, had to negotiate with. Within less than a year, the Turks negotiated a new treaty at Lausanne, which is the only major treaty of the immediate post World War I era to survive to this day. By its terms, the Allies withdrew their forces, renounced their special privileges, and recognized the borders of the new Turkey. The remaining Greek civilians from various parts of the country, especially Istanbul, the Sea of Marmara coast and the Black Sea coast, were expelled and in return Turks from the Balkans and Greece were sent to Turkey. The sultan was sent packing, the caliphate ended, and Ataturk was the (almost) unchallenged leader of the new Republic of Turkey.
If Ataturk had ended his career then and there, he would still be a revered figure. But he remained in power for another 15 years, during which time he remade Turkish society. He believed that Turkey would forever be dominated by the West unless it modernized and became "civilized". To this end, he implemented countless changes: he abolished the old Arabic script and created a new Turkish alphabet based on the Roman alphabet. Arabic and Persian words were banned from the new Turkish, to be replaced with Turkish terms or loan-words from Western languages. The Islamic calendar was replaced with the Western one. The fez was abolished and civil servants required to wear European hats. Islam was dis-established as the state religion. Religious schools were closed and replaced with secular ones. Foreign-owned enterprises were nationalized. The national railway network was vastly enlarged. Women were given legal rights for the first time, including the right to inherit, to vote and to serve as elected representatives. The capital was moved from Istanbul to Ankara. It must have been quite dizzying for Turks, especially those in the educated elite.
Meanwhile, Ataturk put in place the form of a political democracy without much of its substance. When the Kurds revolted (as they did more than once) against the suppression of their language, it was brutally put down, and their leaders executed in a mass hanging. The opposition party -- created at Ataturk's behest by his own allies -- was quickly banned a few months later. The independent press was shut down. Opponents were arrested and in some rare cases executed on trumped-up charges. Even Ataturk's own comrades in arms, if they became too powerful, soon found themselves shunted aside and even arrested.
Ataturk created and transformed modern Turkey, but by the time of his death of cirrhosis of the liver in 1938 -- he liked the good life a bit too much -- it remained a backward country. With a population comprised overwhelmingly of rural peasants, the illiteracy rate remained above 80%. The loss of the Greek and Armenian populations was crippling to the economy, since they had made up almost the whole of the commercial and craftsmen classes, and almost all of them had emigrated or been slaughtered in the Great War and the War of Independence. Their skills took a long time to replace. Still, the country was steadily modernized. Although it took the better part of three generations, long after Ataturk's death, by the end of the twentieth century Turkey had joined the ranks of the fast-growing developing nations, and was a regional super-power. It even has a genuine functioning democracy with an Islamist party in power. And even through Ataturk was himself a secular autocrat, modern Turkey is very much his legacy.
[Postscript 10 years later, in 2021: Turkey has shed a lot of the traits of a democracy in the last 10 years, as Recep Tayyip Erdogan enters his third decade as president. In this trend towards autocracy, he joins the ranks of many populist nationalist leaders around the world, in countries as varied as the US, Hungary, Poland, the Philippines, Brazil, Mexico and others.]
Having said all that, here's the rough summary of the story:
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is a revered figure in Turkey. His statues grace many city squares, his photo hangs on the wall of every government office. He is a sort of George Washington and Napoleon all rolled into one, and because he only died in 1938, he is still within the memory of elderly Turks still living.
His accomplishments lay in many fields. On the military front, he first came to national attention as one of the commanding generals in the Battle of Gallipolli in 1915, when the Turks defeated an invading force of British, French, Australians and New Zealanders, with very heavy casualties on both sides. Coming in the midst of World War I, a war where Turkish victories were few and far between, it helped salvage Turkish national pride.
In the wake of the loss of the war, the Ottoman Empire was largely dismembered by the victorious Allies, with pieces going to various Balkan countries, Greece, Armenia, and assorted newly created Middle Eastern states controlled by the French and British. The empire was reduced to a rump that was soon to be called simply "Turkey". Even that rump was endangered when the Greek Army invaded the Aegean coast and started pushing inland into Anatolia.
In the midst of this disastrous situation, Ataturk seized the initiative in organizing senior military leaders along with some civilian ones to put together a new regime, completely parallel to the still-functioning Ottoman administration under the Sultan in Istanbul, which was under the thumb of the occupying Allies. Setting up a de facto new capital inland in Ankara, Ataturk steadily eroded the credibility, authority and political power of the Ottoman regime. It was this new government that put together the army that eventually stopped the Greek advance in August 1921 at the Battle of Sakarya.
Biding his time, by one year later in 1922 Ataturk felt strong enough to attack the Greek forces and start pushing them out of Anatolia. In the two-day battle of Dumlupinar, he routed the Greek army, which retreated in disorder to the Aegean coast and was soon evacuated back to Greece. The Turkish army followed hot on its heels, and retook the main coastal city of Izmir (known as Smyrna to the Greeks). Allied warships then evacuated over 200,000 civilians, almost the entire Greek population of the city, as the city burned. Very soon, well over two millennia of Greek presence in Anatolia came to an end.
This spectacular and unexpected victory re-established Turkey as a serious power that the wartime Allies, who still occupied Istanbul and various other parts of the country, had to negotiate with. Within less than a year, the Turks negotiated a new treaty at Lausanne, which is the only major treaty of the immediate post World War I era to survive to this day. By its terms, the Allies withdrew their forces, renounced their special privileges, and recognized the borders of the new Turkey. The remaining Greek civilians from various parts of the country, especially Istanbul, the Sea of Marmara coast and the Black Sea coast, were expelled and in return Turks from the Balkans and Greece were sent to Turkey. The sultan was sent packing, the caliphate ended, and Ataturk was the (almost) unchallenged leader of the new Republic of Turkey.
If Ataturk had ended his career then and there, he would still be a revered figure. But he remained in power for another 15 years, during which time he remade Turkish society. He believed that Turkey would forever be dominated by the West unless it modernized and became "civilized". To this end, he implemented countless changes: he abolished the old Arabic script and created a new Turkish alphabet based on the Roman alphabet. Arabic and Persian words were banned from the new Turkish, to be replaced with Turkish terms or loan-words from Western languages. The Islamic calendar was replaced with the Western one. The fez was abolished and civil servants required to wear European hats. Islam was dis-established as the state religion. Religious schools were closed and replaced with secular ones. Foreign-owned enterprises were nationalized. The national railway network was vastly enlarged. Women were given legal rights for the first time, including the right to inherit, to vote and to serve as elected representatives. The capital was moved from Istanbul to Ankara. It must have been quite dizzying for Turks, especially those in the educated elite.
Meanwhile, Ataturk put in place the form of a political democracy without much of its substance. When the Kurds revolted (as they did more than once) against the suppression of their language, it was brutally put down, and their leaders executed in a mass hanging. The opposition party -- created at Ataturk's behest by his own allies -- was quickly banned a few months later. The independent press was shut down. Opponents were arrested and in some rare cases executed on trumped-up charges. Even Ataturk's own comrades in arms, if they became too powerful, soon found themselves shunted aside and even arrested.
Ataturk created and transformed modern Turkey, but by the time of his death of cirrhosis of the liver in 1938 -- he liked the good life a bit too much -- it remained a backward country. With a population comprised overwhelmingly of rural peasants, the illiteracy rate remained above 80%. The loss of the Greek and Armenian populations was crippling to the economy, since they had made up almost the whole of the commercial and craftsmen classes, and almost all of them had emigrated or been slaughtered in the Great War and the War of Independence. Their skills took a long time to replace. Still, the country was steadily modernized. Although it took the better part of three generations, long after Ataturk's death, by the end of the twentieth century Turkey had joined the ranks of the fast-growing developing nations, and was a regional super-power. It even has a genuine functioning democracy with an Islamist party in power. And even through Ataturk was himself a secular autocrat, modern Turkey is very much his legacy.
[Postscript 10 years later, in 2021: Turkey has shed a lot of the traits of a democracy in the last 10 years, as Recep Tayyip Erdogan enters his third decade as president. In this trend towards autocracy, he joins the ranks of many populist nationalist leaders around the world, in countries as varied as the US, Hungary, Poland, the Philippines, Brazil, Mexico and others.]
Best biography business books Description of the book: Here, There and Everywhere is one of the best business biographies regarding The Beatles chief engineer, the man responsible for their unique sound. Geoff Emerick describes his journey from the start of The Beatles in 1962, all the way to their meteoric rise to the top.