I have just read Andrew Mango´s biography of Ataturk, and before Christmas I read the Patrick Kinross version.  Both books raised some issues for me which I would like to follow up.  For example, neither book fully explains why there were enclaves of Greeks and Armenians on what would now be considered as Turkish land, e.g. Izmir etc. Nor, why these nationalities were craftsmen and professionals whlie most Turks were farmers or unskilled. Can anyone reccomend a book or books which covers the period prior to 1900 and covers the social aspects of life. It needs to be in English as my Turkish is not advanced enough to allow me to read books in Turkish.

Thanks

Phew... where are our Turkish historians when we need them?

 cat, they are no good. they show up only at the defence of turkishness.

 i love your questions. not many foreigners show interest in the history of turkey.

i just thought that you could have a look at wikipedia at the start.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey

it is quite long and interesting, and with lots of links to other sources right at your hand.

you will learn about other nations/ethnicities related to turks. you will also learn more about ataurk.

once you click that website you will spend lots lots of hours reading and learning.

you will also find lots of refences to other books.

 you just caught my thoughts. i was thinking about this last few days. greeks and armenians were known for their love to stones, armenians less. but if you ask any armenian, he/she will tell you that its difficult to imagine armenians without rocks.

greeks were known for their love to marbles, almost all their ancient architecture was based on marbles. they were lucky they were located on the huge stock underneath greece. what they did with those large pieces of those white marbles is amazing. they were craftsmen from ancient days. it was them and armenians who built all those beautiful architecture in the land now called turkey.

turks were nomads from central asia. but they have nothing to do with nowadays turks except for language and some culture.

"It was one of the visit of Atatürk to Mersin, then he asked to folks while he was pointing out the big buildings:

"Whose villa is this?"

"its Kirkor´s."

"What about this one?"

"its Yargo´s."

"What about this?"

"its Salomon´s."

After then Atatürk asked with a little anger:

"Where were you when that people making those riches?". Among the folk from behind a gazi responded:

"Where were we?Pascha, we were in Yemen, we were in bank of Danube, we were in Balkans on the mountains of Albania, we were in the Caucasus, Çanakkale and Sakarya."

Later when Atatürk reciting his memoirs, he confessed:

"That white-bearded old man was the only one , i couldnt be able to reply in all my life.""

I hope this memoir of Atatürk helps you to understand a little.

Thanks to everyone for their comments. I think I have found a suitable book by an American historian called Justin McCarthy. (The Ottoman Turks: an introductory history to 1923).  The only problem is that this book is out of print and hence is expensive.  The author (according to web sites) is a controversial figure because of his views on the Armenian issue. 

When I have the book and have read it I will post some comments here.

 excellent choice justin mc carthy is very good

Mike, have a look, you can get it from Amazon.com. A bit expensive:

The Ottoman Turks: An Introductory History to 1923 by Justin McCarthy (Paperback - Mar 14, 1997)

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Excerpt - page 373: "... 176,000 Total 17,53 ) 6,000 Armenian Gregorian and Protestant. Justin McCarthy, Muslims and Minorities, New York, 1983, p. 110. 373 ..."Surprise me! See a random page in this book.

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We have Justin McCarthy and A.Mango´s books.They are good and realistic American historians.read them if you want to understand "the real world history".