Description

Turkey has changed from an Islamic Empire antagonistic to Christian states to a secular nation state, a member of NATO and a candidate for EU membership. This involves not only a significant shift in foreign policy towards Europe, but also a reshaping of Ottoman and Turkish identity. This book traces how the concept Europe has been shaped in this process over a period of about 200 years. It employs a conceptual history (Begriffsbeschichte) approach; through a broad empirical investigation of Turkish texts that concern the Ottoman Empire s and later Turkey s relationship with Europe, it lays out how the concept of Europe has been shaped and takes its meaning from a semantic field. The main argument is that while Turkish identity is linked to concepts such as modernisation , Westernisation and sometimes even Europeanisation , the Turkish Self still stands in a co-constitutive relationship with the concept of Europe.