This book is about the principal writings that shaped the perception of Turkey for informed readers in English, from Edward Gibbon’s positing of imperial Decline and Fall to the proclamation of the Turkish Republic (1923), illustrating how Turkey has always been a part of the modern British and European experience. It is a great sweep of a story: from Gibbon as standard textbook, through Lord Bryon the pro-Turkish poet, and Benjamin Disraeli the Romantic novelist of all things Eastern, followed by John Buchan's Greenmantle First World War espionage fantasies, and then Manchester Guardian reporter Arnold Toynbee narrating the fight for Turkish independence.

Richard H. Popkin has already been celebrated in two Festschriften as one of the century's greatest historians of philosophy.This latest book, whose editors were among those who prepared the first two volumes, centers on Popkin's crucial role in bringing together scholars from around the world in a long series of academic conferences and learned meetings which helped transform the field from one of solitary endeavour into a 'Republic of Letters'.Publications by Richard H. Popkin: Isaac la Peyrère (1596-1676): His Life, Work and Influence, ISBN: 978 90 04 08157 4 Edited by Y. Kaplan, H. Méchoulan and R.H. Popkin, Menasseh ben Israel and his World, ISBN: 978 90 04 09114 6 Third Force in Seventeenth-Century Thought, ISBN: 978 90 04 09324 9 Martin I.J. Griffin Jr. Annotated by Richard H. Popkin. Edited by Lila Freedman, Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth-Century Church of England, ISBN: 978 90 04 09653 0 Edited by Richard H. Popkin and Arjo Vanderjagt, Scepticism and Irreligion in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ISBN: 978 90 04 09596 0 Edited by Martin Mulsow and Richard H. Popkin, Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth-Century Church of England, ISBN: 978 90 04 12883 5 Edited by R.H. Popkin, Millenarianism and Messianism in English Literature and Thought 1650-1800, ISBN: 978 90 04 08513 8 (Out of print)