little, sauseschritt assumes. isn´t our mind full of stories, anecdotes, prejudices and images, which do add to a half true, half wrong perception of this country and its history ?

when sauseschritt strolled through the ambient area of atatürk airport in istanbul, he found this book in a store and hoped that it may help him to understand turkish society more deeply. he was irritated by the title of the book, though. why concentrate on turks only and not on all of turkey?

to be honest: sauseschritt expected much and found only little. who ever will wish to find in depth analyses on turkeys historical, economic, social and political condition may try to find it somewhere else. andrew mango only offers a collection of thoughts, opinions, statements and figures, which in themselves may be correct and good to know. nevertheless, sauseschritt missed a concise analyses, thoughtful interpretation and conclusions.

on the other hand we learn from mango´s book that military law can be useful, the genocide of the armenians was provoced by themselves, leftist parties always create problems and IMF programmes produce impressive results, etc. thanks a lot, mr. mango, we have to listen to these kind of lectures all the time.