Under the Shadow Rage an
By Kaya Genç

Turkey stands at the crossroads of the Middle East--caught between the
West and ISIS, Syria and Russia, and governed by an increasingly
forceful leader. Acclaimed writer Kaya Genc has been covering his
country for the past decade. In Under the Shadow he meets activists from
both sides of Turkey's political divide: Gezi park protestors who
fought tear gas and batons to transform their country's future, and
supporters of Erdogan's conservative vision who are no less passionate
in their activism. He talks to artists and authors to ask whether the
New Turkey is a good place to for them to live and work. He interviews
censored journalists and conservative writers both angered by what has
been going on in their country.He meets Turkey's Wall Street types who
take to the streets despite the enormity of what they can lose as well
as the young Islamic entrepreneurs who drive Turkey's economy.While
talking to Turkey's angry young people Genc weaves in historical
stories, visions and mythologies, showing how Turkey's progressives and
conservatives take their ideological roots from two political movements
born in the Ottoman Empire: the Young Turks and the Young Ottomans, two
groups of intellectuals who were united in their determination to make
their country more democratic. He shows a divided society coming to
terms with the 21st Century, and in doing so, gets to the heart of the
compelling conflicts between history and modernity in the Middle East.