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Ottoman Odyssey
- Travels Through a Lost Empire
- Narrated by: Naomi Frederick
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
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Ottoman Odyssey
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Summary
SHORTLISTED FOR THE STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR
Alev Scott's odyssey began when she looked beyond Turkey's borders for contemporary traces of the Ottoman Empire. Their 800-year rule ended a century ago - and yet, travelling through twelve countries from Kosovo to Greece to Palestine, she uncovers a legacy that's vital and relevant; where medieval ethnic diversity meets 21st century nationalism, and displaced people seek new identities.
It's a story of surprises. An acolyte of Erdogan in Christian-majority Serbia confirms the wide-reaching appeal of his authoritarian leadership. A Druze warlord explains the secretive religious faction in the heart of the Middle East. The palimpsest-like streets of Jerusalem's Old Town hint at the Ottoman co-existence of Muslims and Jews. And in Turkish Cyprus Alev Scott rediscovers a childhood home. In every community, history is present as a dynamic force.
Faced by questions of exile, diaspora and collective memory, Alev Scott searches for answers from the cafes of Beirut to the refugee camps of Lesbos. She uncovers in Erdogan's nouveau-Ottoman Turkey a version of the nostalgic utopias sold to disillusioned voters in Europe and the U.S. And yet - as she relates with compassion, insight and humour - diversity is the enduring, endangered heart of this fascinating region.
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Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Halil
- 04-07-24
A book on Armenians and Jews
I bought this audiobook with much excitement which was quickly extinguished when I discovered a biased view of Turkish history .
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- John Gabriel Corcoran
- 14-12-22
Mediocre, Trite, and Condescending.
Alev Scott looks good on paper, well educated, young, an 'intellectual' even?
The reality, as evidenced by this book, is that she is yet another of the myriad conformist 'on message' writers peddling the tiresome 'woke' message. This is shoe horned in to her writing at every opportunity to a degree which reeks of the condescension one feels when one is being 'lectured' to by someone who has an inflated opinion of their own ability and importance.
Add to this a barely disguised set of prejudices and factual errors, and we have here, what this publication is, a very mediocre, rather tedious travel book.
Early on, what is noticeable is Scott's penchant for emoting, rather than describing accurately. Part of her shtick is a low level 'victim of political oppression by Erdogan ' narrative, which when one researches it, is swathed in a vagueness which suggests there's been a lot left out of her account.
Later one begins to notice Scott's factual laziness, we are told someone left here to go to "the Monastery of Mount Athos". Which one? There are at least 27 Monasteries on the Athonite peninsula and a myriad of Sketes. Further on , demonstrating that beautifully "western liberal" form of racist condescension, she describes the traditional piety of Armenian Orthodox Christians as "thinly disguised paganism". Based on no evidence at all, she decides that two elderly Armenian worshippers, greeting each other in the traditional Orthodox Christian manner, are attending the religious ceremony for primarily "social" reasons. Faith, worship, and piety, whether Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, are treated like incomprehensible dead relics. Scott carries the agnostic secularism of her rather privileged English social milieu around her like a suit of armour as she travels through a region where faith, worship, and open devotional piety is alive and well, not through ignorance, but very often through conscious rejection of the hollowness of the western liberal values she espouses. It is no accident that virtually every 'local' she discusses matters with are secularist, rather western oriented people, who 'no longer practice' their childhood religious affiliation. To meet so many people in these regions , who "surprisingly" echo the authors prejudices and values, suggests the lazy journalism derived from seeking out voices who will serve the narrative, which I suspect Scott had formed long before she ever put pen to paper.
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