Bahattin Aksit 2021 Lewis and Meeker: Imperial Continuity of Turkish State and Society

Bernard Lewis's (1961) Emergence of Modern Turkey and Micheal Meeker's (2002) A Nation of Empire are two books that discuss Ottoman and Republican continuity in Turkey. Lewis's book is politcal scientific and historical while Meeker's book is anthropological and historical. Meeker as anthropologist studied the town of Of in Trabzon starting second half of 1960's by focusing on state-society relationships and puzzled with the continuity and/or discontinuity with the past social and politcal structures. On the basis of repeated visits to Of and a historical research he found out imperial legacy in the local community. Lewis stated at the beginning of his book that he will focus on three elements that go into making of modern Turkey: the Islamic, the Turkish and the Local. In this video Lewis's and Meeker's books will be taken up. In the next video Meeker's and Halil İnalcık's contributions to the study of classical Ottoman State struclture will be summarized.