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by Ryan Gingeras (Author)
Amid the tensions and uncertainties that plagued the globe before the Second World War, the Republic of Turkey appeared to many as a unique and constructive model for how a state was to be reformed and governed in the modern era. For many interwar observers, Turkey was a country that seemed to have radically transformed itself into a nation that was united, strong, and progressive, one that was unburdened by its past. A general consensus held that Turkey's founding president, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was the chief architect and engineer of this feat, a belief that placed him among the greatest reforming statesmen in world history. This general perception of Ataturk and his revolutionary rule has largely endured to this day.
As a study grounded in largely untapped archival and scholarly sources, Eternal Dawn presents a definitive look inside the development and evolution of Ataturk's Turkey. Rather than presenting the country's founding and transformation as an extension of Mustafa Kemal's life and achievements, scholar Ryan Gingeras presents Turkey's early years as the culmination of a variety of social and political forces dating back to the late Ottoman Empire. Eternal Dawn presses beyond the reigning mythology that still envelops this period and challenges many of the standing assumptions about the limits, successes, and consequences of the reforms that comprised Mustafa Kemal's revolution. Through a detailed survey of social and political conditions that defined life in the capital as well as Turkey's diverse provinces, Gingeras lays bare many of the harsh realities and bitter legacies incurred as a result of the republic's establishment and transformation. Ataturk's revolution, upon final analysis, destroyed as much as it built, and established precedents that both strengthen and torment the country to this day.Author Biography
Ryan Gingeras, Associate Professor, Naval Postgraduate School
Ryan Gingeras is an associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, and is an expert on Turkish, Balkan, and Middle East history. He is the author of four books, including most recently, Fall of the Sultanate: The Great War and the End of the Ottoman Empire 1908-1922 (2016). His Sorrowful Shores: Violence, Ethnicity, and the End of the Ottoman Empire (2009) received short list distinctions for the Rothschild Book Prize in Nationalism and Ethnic Studies and the British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize. He has published on a wide variety of topics related to history and politics in such journals as Foreign Affairs, International Journal of Middle East Studies, MiddleEast Journal, Iranian Studies, Diplomatic History, Past & Present, and Journal of Contemporary European History.
