Alpine Library/Interconnections 21 Talk on Turkey & the Ottomans

I am pleased to have been invited to speak at the Alpine library this evening, sponsored by Interconnections 21.  I have worked with Susie and Evan and been to events sponsored by them, and have been really impressed.  IC21 also sponsors the Teton County Model UN Conference, which I have been bringing students to.  Check out the organization's website here.

For the presentation tonight, I will be showing an online Prezi.  Mostly it is photographs to accompany my talk.  It may be accessed here.  If you are not familiar with Prezi, it is a web-based presentation program that presents on a wide canvas, rather than on linear slides, like PowerPoints.

For those who would like resources on exploring the Ottomans and/or Turkey and the region, here are some I would recommend:

• Donald Quartaert's The Ottoman Empire:  1700-1922 (Cambridge University Press)
• 15 Minute History podcast episodes.  This is a link to the index.  I would recommend the imperialism ones and the Ottoman empire episodes.  All of them are succinct and excellent.
• If you like historical fiction, the novel Birds without Wings by Louis de Bernieres is a great read about a small village, aptly named Eden, at the end of the Ottoman Empire.  
• I am currently listening to the audio version of Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson.  I am thoroughly enjoying it.  The historiography and writing are excellent, and you will learn a great deal about the botching of the Triple Entente's diplomacy and carving up of the Middle East at the end of World War I.
• For today's Middle East and Turkey, I really like these websites:  Al Monitor, and the Hurriyet Daily News.  Al Monitor has separate sections for different countries/regions.  
• The BBC recently did a program on Turkey, the "New Ottomans."  I have not seen much of it, but it gives you the idea of the changes Turkey is undergoing and its relationship to the past.