Best Books About Turkey and the Middle East

As always in my book lists and reviews, these are not definitive bibliographies, but rather books I've read and recommend

Ancient Turkey : A Traveler's History by Seton Lloyd. This was one of our best preparations for our trips to Turkey . It covers an enormous period from prehistoric times to the Christian era. yet manages to set everything in perspective. Lloyd traces the exploits of the Hittite kings, the confrontation of Croesus and the Persian king Cyrus, the conquests of Alexander the Great, and Mithridates' epic resistance against Rome. Plus, it addresses the history as a traveler will see it. Archaeological landmarks discussed include the discovery of the CatalHoyuk, the attempts to establish the location of Troy, and the opening of the Tomb of Midas. Lloyd shows how each successive culture has left its mark on an astonishing variety of sites, from the shrines of CatalHoyuk to the temples of Ephesus and the churches founded by St. Paul. In our first, month long trip we only managed to visit about half the sites that he discusses, although we saw many of them represented in museums. But that just means we'll still be using this book on our next trips. My only wish would be for a sequel covering the last 2000 years of Turkish history

The Coming of the Greeks : Indo-European Conquests in the Aegean and the Near East -

In Search of the Trojan War

Kingdom of the Hittites - Trevor Bryce -- a fascinating narrative of Hittite history and culture, using the latest research.

The Peoples of the Hills - Ancient Ararat and Caucasus - Charles Burney, David Marshall Long - covers the history and civilization of eastern Turkey, Armenia, Georgia and the Caucasus, from ancient times to the Mongol invasions in the 13th century.

The Middle East - A brief History of the Last 2,000 Years - Bernard Lewis- an excellent survey of history and analysis of its current implications.

Jack Finegan - Archaeological History of the Ancient Middle East

Noah's Flood

Norwich - Byzantium

Michael Psellus - 14 Byzantine Rulers

T.E. Lawrence - Crusader Castles

Hourani - History of the Arab Peoples

Empires of the Sand : The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789-1923 by Efraim Karsh, Inari Karsh A new approach to the topic that argues that the Ottoman empire was much more competent and vigorous than the traditional 'Sick Man of Europe' stereotype. Especially interesting to read this book in conjunction with some of the more traditional approaches like Goodwin and Fromkin.

War in the Holy Land: From Megiddo to the West Bank 212 pages, beautifully detailed historical atlas following a history of the Holy Land from the Canaanite defeat by the Egyptians at Meggido in 1468 BC through the peace negotiations between Israel and the Arabs in 1998 and Arab. A great companion book to Armstrong's Holy War

Holy War - Karen Armstrong

Duncan - War in the Holy Land

The Emergence of Modern Turkey - Bernard Lewis

A Peace to End All Peace - the Fall of the Ottoman Empire - David Fromkin

T.E. Lawrence - 7 Pillars of Wisdom

Sandra Mackey - The Iranians

Bitter Lemons - Lawrence Durrell - An evocative memoir of the author's stay [1953-6] in what's now Northern Cyprus. Much of the landscape was still as he described it when we visited Belle Pais, Famagusta, Kyrenia, and Nicosia, the Tree of Idleness and other sites on our hiking trip to Cyprus in 2001. His adventures in buying and maintaining a house rival those of Peter Mayle's "A Year in Provence"written many years later. The peaceful interludes in the hills are marred by foreshadowing of the political turmoil and tragedies that would engulf Cyprus in the following decades, leading to the departure of Durrell and other foreign nationals. Some of those towns and even cities remain ghost towns to this day. Once hard to find, this book has now been deservedly reissued.