Some Books about Asia Minor

This is not a complete bibliography. I only list books that I refer to elsewhere on this site. See the last section for more sources.

GENERAL HISTORIC REFERENCES

[EG] Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, first published in 1788.

Note: I use the 1978 reprint of the 1910 Everyman's Library (Dutton: New York) unabridged edition with comments by Oliphant Smeaton. I cite chapters (independent of the edition) as well as volume and page. Some people consider this book unfair to the Byzantines. However numerous footnote quotations in Greek from Byzantine authors confirm Gibbon's judgment. (Because the footnotes contain large amounts of Greek and Latin text, they are usually omitted from abridged editions.)

[LL98] Lee I. Levine, Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity, Univ. of Washington Press, 1998.

[SV71] Speros Vryonis, Jr. The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century, Univ. of California Press, 1971.

Note: The book is kept in print by ACLS and it can be purchased directly from ACLS or from Amazon. It contains numerous references and quotes from texts of that period.

GENERAL POLITICAL REFERENCES

BOOKS ABOUT TURKEY AND THE MIDDLE-EAST

[BL95] Bernard Lewis, The Middle East, A brief History of the last 2000 years, Touchtone, 1995.

[BL02] Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, Third Edition, Oxford Univ. Press, 2002.

[FB78] Franz Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and his Time, Princeton Univ. Press, 1978. Translated from the German. First German edition was in 1953.

[HI94] Halil Inalcik, An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1600, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994.

BOOKS (in whole or in part) ABOUT THE ASIA MINOR CATASTROPHE

[BC06] Bruce Clark, Twice a Stranger, 2006 - The best and most objective historical account of the tragic events I have seen. See a review I wrote about this book.

[JE02] Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex, Picador, 2002. - This is a best seller that won the Pulitzer Prize that covers a wide range of topics, but the first 60 or so pages of the book describe life in a village near Bursa (the area where my mother came from) and the 1922 catastrophe. While it is not a primary source, it gives a good picture of the events.

[LB04] Louis de Bernieres, Birds without Wings, 2004 - A work of fiction that provides a fairly accurate account of life in Asia Minor and the subsequent catastrophic events. See a review I wrote about this book. My only criticism is that the description of the relations between Greeks and Turks before WW I is a bit too idyllic. The description [EK85] seems to fit better with I have heard from my relatives. Relations between the two groups were good but not free of friction.

[MH71] Marjorie Housepian, The Smyrna Affair, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1971.

[MHD98] Marjorie Housepian Dobkin, Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City, 1998. This book is a reprint with a new introduction of the 1972 London edition of [MH71]. Highly recommended.

[TD77] Thomas Doulis, Disaster and Fiction: Modern Greek Fiction and the Asia Minor Disaster of 1922, Univ. of California Press, 1977, p. 20.

[TH00] Thea Halo, Not Even My Name, Picador, 2000 - An account of the persecutions of Christians in the Eastern part of Turkey where the victims were Armenians and Greeks from the Black Sea region (Pontos). However, the book is too partisan by viewing all history of the region as a conflict between Christians and Turks and it includes at least one major historical inaccuracy.

[HM29] Henry Morgenthau, I was sent to Athens, Doubleday, 1929. (Title of London edition An International Drama)

[GT94] Grigoris Troufakos. Preface to the 1994 Greek Translation of [HM29].

BOOKS IN GREEK

[CS80] Χ. Σαμουηλιδης, Καραμανιτες, Εστια, Athens, 1980 - A historical novel that takes place in Kermira, the hometown of my paternal grandmother. It also emphasizes the "friendly and brotherly relations of the Greeks and Turks of central Asia Minor" until the end.

[EK85] Ελενη Σ. Καρατζα, Καππαδοκια (ο τελευταιος ελληνισμος του Ακσεραι Γκελβερι), Γνωση, Athens, 1985. - A serious historical work about some of the Greek population of Cappadocia. The book is dedicated to "The last Greek inhabitants of the region and their Turkish compatriots, who had more things to unite them than to separate them." The book includes numerous photographs, including one of a woman who was born Christian but converted to Islam rather then leave for Greece during the population exchange.

[ES92] Ε. Σκοπετεα, Η Δυση της Ανατολης, Γνωση, Athens, 1992. A scholarly study of the interaction between East (the Ottoman Empire) and Western Europe. Probably, the best book I have read on the subject.

PLACES WITH EXTENSIVE LISTS OF BOOKS ON ASIA MINOR

A major source of original material about Asia Minor is the Centre of Asia Minor Studies in Athens.


Back to the Asia Minor index place - Back to Family History


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