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Sons of the Conquerors: The Rise of the Turkic World Hardcover – June 2, 2005

by Hugh Pope (Author)

17 customer reviews

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A detailed portrait of the Turkic people explores events since World War I that have rendered the nation a vital NATO ally and the site of a secular Islamic democracy, tracing centuries of citizen ancestry to offer insight into how Turkish culture has significantly impacted history. By the co-author of Turkey Unveiled. 20,000 first printing.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Delving deep into a world most westerners are shamefully ignorant of, this highly readable collection of essays about Turkic people from Virginia to Xinjiang, China, buzzes with life and personality even as it explains topics as obscure as the inner workings of Azerbaijani politics. Pope, who also wrote (with Nicole Pope) Turkey Unveiled and is the Istanbul correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, has a knack for storytelling and an inexhaustible store of novelistic details-the pop of a weld torch, for example, as an Istanbul ironworker explains that UFOs are proof that Americans have djinns (evil spirits) instead of souls. The only real flaw in this appealing, affectionate portrait of the Turkic world (a term that includes all Turkish speakers, not only those who live in Turkey) is that all this vivid reporting can't compensate for a relative lack of big-picture analysis. The book's dozens of otherwise deft capsule histories of obscure corners of the world have an oddly free-floating quality, unmoored from any clear geopolitical understanding. It is perhaps this that gives some of Pope's conclusions a tossed-off feeling. "Bulgarian Turks still do not really trust the Bulgarians," he writes in a chapter about the persecution of the former by the latter, before breezily concluding, without offering any supporting evidence, that "the edge is off the conflict." Pope's gift for accessible writing make this an excellent first book for anyone interested in the subject, even if its dearth of analysis means it shouldn't be the last.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

With the end of the Soviet Union began independence for a half-dozen Turkic countries, where Istanbul-based reporter Pope has made forays for the past 15 years, traveling in both presidential airliners and faltering taxis. Pope does not organize his trips chronologically, but, rather, according to what he believes are the seven collective characteristics of Turkic peoples. One is the "military vocation" epitomized by Turkey itself, whose military is regarded as the guardian of secularism; a concomitant trait is predilection for the political strongman. None of the new Turkic states is a liberal democracy, and none less so than Turkmenistan, home to a shambolic personality cult devoted to its dictator. Pope's talks with officials are always revelatory of local and international politics, but readers will most value his perceptiveness about Turkic culture when he, speaking fluent Turkish, meets ordinary people. Some of these are Uygurs, the Turkic minority suppressed by communist China, and others are part of the Turkic diaspora in Europe and America. A sensitive presentation of how Turks view themselves and their future. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product details

Hardcover: 432 pages
Publisher: The Overlook Press; 1 edition (May 12, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1585676411
ISBN-13: 978-1585676415
Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.4 x 9.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 17 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #883,157 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #469 in Books > History > Middle East > Turkey
- #2374 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Specific Demographics > Ethnic Studies
- #18273 in Books > History > Europe

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James Denny

Insight into the pan-Turkic world

August 6, 2009

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Hugh Pope's "Sons of the Conquerors: The Rise of the Turkic World" provides the Western reader a glimpse into a different reality of world history.

Under-emphasized and under-represented in any history curriculum at any Western university, this work presents to the reader facts and events of pan-Turkic and central Asian history and culture that have had little currency, recognition or understanding in the West.

Comparatively speaking, the history and culture of East Asia--Chinese history, Japanese history, Korean history and the history of southeast Asia are much better taught and understood in the West than the history of the Turkic peoples in central Asia.

A major strength, but also the major weakness of Pope's work is his concentration on Turkey and Turkish history and culture, especially the Ottoman period and 20th-century, post-Ataturk Turkey. This is understandable because Pope has clearly spent more time, done more research and has more knowledge of Turkey than of the other pan-Turkish cultures of central Asia.

In "Sons of the Conquerers," Pope does not limit himself to documenting Turkey. Instead, he has attempted to bring in the many central Asian nations associated with pan-Turkic culture, i.e., Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc.

As a reader, I would have liked to see "more equal time" spent on the cultures of these central Asian nations, many of them newly minted from the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's. Among these, Uzbekistan is slightly favored with "extra time." In addition, Pope gives short shrift to Turkic peoples living within today's post-Soviet Russia, i.e., Tatars and the Buryats to name two groups.

Having spent time in central Asia with the Buryat people of Buryatia, who inhabit the area east of Lake Baikal in south-central Siberia, I can report that they do indeed have a culture of their own. A Mongol people, the Buryat people made peace with the early Cossack soldiers, traders, trappers and settlers. Unlike many conquered peoples, they were successful in retaining a large amount of their indigenous culture, including their Buddhist faith and animist traditions. Shamanism is widely practiced. Outwardly conformist to Soviet society, Buryats are a Turkic people who managed to survive because of inner strengths, cultural values and traditions quite different from the external culture. I would have liked Pope to delve into this kind of analysis for other pan-Turkic peoples.

This is a good read, especially for someone reading about Turkic history for the first time. However, the serious student will need more than is presented here, especially about the central Asian pan-Turkic peoples.

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L. White

superb work on Turkey and Turkic world

July 23, 2008

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

A surprizingly large expanse of territory across the globe is inhabited by Turkish and Turkic peoples. Pope's fascinating and comprehensive work is among the most important books, and best written on the subject whether providing the reader with a significantg understanding of the importance of the Army on Turkish politics, insights on Turkish history presence in the Balkans or focusing more general on Turkish history and its major figures.
However, the history, politics, economy and social worlds of Turkey is only part of the story of the Turkic people. Pope describes their diverse life worlds and politics on the Steppe of Cental Asia and also as against competitors in this vast area such as the Russians and the Chinese and also with important emphasis on the rush for oil. This is a very bold and extremely well written saga of the Turkic world in the context of the wider world system. A fabulous read, don't miss it.

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November 28, 2013

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Pope, from a 'British Observer"'s point of view, did excellent observations, quite correct. Helpful to learn about Turkish societies en mass

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April 4, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I love the way this book drops into so many different locations and clearly unpacks the history, the culture, the language, and a dozen other things to help you understand what's going on.

Very highly recommend it.

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Lands worth discovering

April 13, 2016

Format: Hardcover

A recommended counterpart to his 2005 political study "Turkey Unveiled" (see my review recently) this roams past that land into the other Turkic realms. Part travelogue, part interviews and reporting, this looks at the sixteen (and more?) entities that claim common roots. A veteran journalist, he can be wry. Armenian incursions into Azeri territory met so little resistance they can be labeled "armed tourism." (57) In Turkmenistan, the leader Turkmenbashy's speech to workers "unfolded like that of an inadequate parent trying to buy off unruly children with treats." (97) He contrasts London's underground where commuters bury their noses into papers with that in Istanbul, where "the Turks' main pastime is looking other passengers in the eye." (126)

Fluency in Arabic, Persian and Turkish enables Pope to mingle widely, too. He unravels the worry of an endless Trans-Caspian ferry, when in an aside he mentions it started with a thirty-six hour wait. One wonders how he handled that. He mourns the Turkish attitude where no pleasure is pursued in public without supervision. He hears in a police station in that nation the strains of Leonard Cohen aired somewhere. Attentive to the needs of hearing out the Turks, who are often the targets of prejudice and distortion in the press and popular culture, he remains critical but attentive to their side of the many arguments. He understands the fears of China's persecuted Uygurs, and the boasts of Central Asian despots.

The best moment is doubly symbolic. He and other European friends are prevented by officious bureaucrats from swimming across the Bosphorus during a city-wide celebration. So they get a small boat and convince the captain to accompany them as they bobble along. Pope muses on this as representing current Turkish reactions to foreigners, as well as the strait's own situation. Its southerly current, freshened by rivers into the Black Sea, is clean and carries the swimmers along. Its undercurrent rarely mixes, a deeper and denser blend pushing salt water into that same sea. "It was a metaphor for the Turks themselves, who keep heading toward the prosperity of the West but who find their hearts constantly tugging them back east." (353)

This narrative rambles, and some dull chapters on some Central Asian regimes are followed as in the Uygur chapter by harrowing ones. While much of this may be journalism reworked into a book, it serves a needed purpose for those needing to understand this great bridge between continents, with cultures deserving their own study and recognition, east of the Himalayas and west of the Mediterranean and Black Seas.

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