Rating: 
Summary: YES, BUT WHO IS ATATURK?
Review: This book seemed to fail in revealing Ataturk's life. Thruout the book I imagined Ataturk to be in some air-conditioned room divorced from the outside world. All that Ataturk seemed to have done were the so-called positive deeds. There was no other side to him (except for his drinking). A lot was written about the time he spent in some parlor or on some yacht. But nothing was written about his relationship with others. How was he raised? Who did he love? Who did he hate? And why? Ataturk was depicted with no depth. Why did he do the things he did? No psychological background on Ataturk. I guess it would have been too embarrassing. After reading this 540 page book, I know no more about Ataturk than before. The only things I know more of now is what he purportedly said to someone at some meeting or party. The subject of his girlfriends was barely addressed. The book dwelt not at all on his private life except for a few words in passing. The book was strictly from the official Turkish point of view. Objectivity had no place in this book. No place was it mentioned about the Armenians' holocaust. The author called it ethnic cleanTing. And of course, Ataturk had nothing to do with it. He was in his room. The author seemed very thorough with the Greek atrocities on the Turks, but when the Turks had the upper hand - he said nothing except for a few words to justify what the Turks did. And there was nothing at all written about the subjugation of the Kurds except that the Kurds were hopelessly divided. The Turkish presence in the Balkans was also equally whitewashed. Some of the sentences were a bit too complex, but we can all forgive that. WWII deserved only 1 paragraph in the book. The book was incomplete. Ataturk was portrayed as being 1-dimentional thru no fault of his own. It was the author's doing.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting subject ruined by inferior narrative ability
Review: This is a very interesting topic that has been under-scrutinized in western sources. Mr. Mango has done excellent research, but the narrative is jumbled and difficult to follow. Most egregiously, the author is the equivalent of a dyslexic grasshopper with ADHD-- he tends to switch subjects frequently, often in the middle of paragraphs.I have no quibble with his facts, but Mr. Mango has done a worse than average job of presenting a fascinating story. This book was a disappointment and not worth the money spent even at half price. A smaller complaint has to do with the maps -- more could have been done to show maps in the course of the narrative. A bigger complaint is that Mango (has) (never) (met) (a) (parenthesis) (that) (he) (didn't) (love) (to) (use). Bottom line: if you're already versed in the subject and are looking for another resource, it's fine. If you're reading it to learn something about Mustafa Kemal for fun/interest, you will be an unpleasant combination of bored and confused.
Rating: 
Summary: Superb! Ataturk is a fascinating read
Review: This is the first english language biography of the formidable Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in almost 40 years. Drawing on the extensive Turkish literature on Ataturk, Mango has produced a well organized, well written, and largely sympathetic biography of Ataturk. Mango makes a systematic attempt to discard many of the semi-legendary distortions that Ataturk's followers attached to his life story while emphasizing Ataturk's remarkable achievements. Given the nature of Ataturk's life, this is essentially a political biography, describing Ataturk's career as a soldier, politician and statesman. Mango also provides a fine introduction to modern Turkish history. Useful narrative includes a balanced and surprisingly sympathetic account of the reign of the last important Sultan, Abdulhamit, the imposition of a constitutional state prior to WWI, the events of WWI, the War of Independence, and the foundation of the modern Turkish state. There is always a danger in combining political history with biography in that there is a tendency to make the subject of the biography central to all aspects of the history. Mango largely avoids this trap. This is partly because Ataturk was central to many of the key episodes of modern Turkish history and partly because Mango is careful not to let ascribe too much importance to Ataturk's actions at times when he was at the periphery of events. Still, readers have to remember that this is a biography, not a history. Necessarily, some very important events, such as the horrifying massacres of the Armenians by the Turkish government in WWI, are discussed only superficially. Mango nicely covers Ataturk's early years as a young officer, his experience in WWI, his consistent immersion in nationalist politics, and his eventual emergence as the dominant leader in the post-war period. Ataturk as able to parlay his prominence as a successful commander in WWI, the fact that he was not contaminated by being a close supporter of the WWI government, and his considerable political skills into developing the coalition of political activists and officers that founded the modern Turkish state. His achievements were remarkable. Turkey was a poor country devastated by the experience of WWI. Considerable Turkish territory was occupied by the Allies, the Greeks hoped to carve off a large part of Turkey, and the remaining Armenian minorities were in a state of revolt. Ataturk as able to forge a new government, used shrewd diplomacy to divide the Allies, and to reorganize the Army. Under his leadership, the Turkish Army reconquered large parts of occupied eastern and western Turkey, inflicting decisive losses on the insurgent Armenians and the better equipped Greek army. He then went on to become the dominant figure of post-war Turkish life, leading the nationalist movement to impose its version of modernization on Turkey. Mango's presentation of Ataturk is largely fair but probably contains some limitations and flaws. As a biographer, Mango's concentration on Ataturk results in an unavoidable tendency to deal with other important figures only in relation to Ataturk. It is clear from Mango's account that the success of the War of Independence and the foundation of the Turkish state was the result of the activities of a remarkable group of leaders, mainly but not exclusively Army officers who had been trained by the Germans and with considerable experience in WWI. Mango does not, and cannot, really discuss the roles of these individuals systematically. Mango also lets Ataturk off too easily for some of the crimes of the War of Independence. Clearly, there was great crimes committed by both the Greek and Turkish armies. While Ataturk does not seem to be implicated in any of these crimes, it does not seem that he made any great effort to stop them. He was not responsible for the infamous sack of Izmir (Symrna) but there is no evidence that he did anything to mitigate or prevent the violence. Ataturk was a romantic nationalist who believed strongly ethnic identification with the land. He wanted a Turkey for Turks, not a liberal pluralistic democracy. He welcomed the expulsion of ethnic Greeks from Turkey and the transfer of ethnic Turks from Europe to Anatolia. He did not approve of forcible expulsion, preferring negotiated population transfer, but welcomed the end result. Mango errs also in characterizing Ataturk as an heir of the Enlightenment who wanted Turkey to develop into a modern, European, rationalistic state. This interpretation is one of those half-truths that carries considerable weight. Ataturk, who spoke and read French with some fluency, appears to have been greatly influenced by the example of the French state. I suspect, however, that great example was not the France of the Enlightenment or even the French Revolution, but the France of the Third Republic. The latter was intensely nationalistic, centralized, anti-clerical, and modernizing in the specific sense of destroying traditional culture. This seems to be the real model for Ataturk, not Voltaire.
Rating: 
Summary: Fine Biography
Review: This is the first english language biography of the formidable Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in almost 40 years. Drawing on the extensive Turkish literature on Ataturk, Mango has produced a well organized, well written, and largely sympathetic biography of Ataturk. Mango makes a systematic attempt to discard many of the semi-legendary distortions that Ataturk's followers attached to his life story while emphasizing Ataturk's remarkable achievements. Given the nature of Ataturk's life, this is essentially a political biography, describing Ataturk's career as a soldier, politician and statesman. Mango also provides a fine introduction to modern Turkish history. Useful narrative includes a balanced and surprisingly sympathetic account of the reign of the last important Sultan, Abdulhamit, the imposition of a constitutional state prior to WWI, the events of WWI, the War of Independence, and the foundation of the modern Turkish state. There is always a danger in combining political history with biography in that there is a tendency to make the subject of the biography central to all aspects of the history. Mango largely avoids this trap. This is partly because Ataturk was central to many of the key episodes of modern Turkish history and partly because Mango is careful not to let ascribe too much importance to Ataturk's actions at times when he was at the periphery of events. Still, readers have to remember that this is a biography, not a history. Necessarily, some very important events, such as the horrifying massacres of the Armenians by the Turkish government in WWI, are discussed only superficially. Mango nicely covers Ataturk's early years as a young officer, his experience in WWI, his consistent immersion in nationalist politics, and his eventual emergence as the dominant leader in the post-war period. Ataturk as able to parlay his prominence as a successful commander in WWI, the fact that he was not contaminated by being a close supporter of the WWI government, and his considerable political skills into developing the coalition of political activists and officers that founded the modern Turkish state. His achievements were remarkable. Turkey was a poor country devastated by the experience of WWI. Considerable Turkish territory was occupied by the Allies, the Greeks hoped to carve off a large part of Turkey, and the remaining Armenian minorities were in a state of revolt. Ataturk as able to forge a new government, used shrewd diplomacy to divide the Allies, and to reorganize the Army. Under his leadership, the Turkish Army reconquered large parts of occupied eastern and western Turkey, inflicting decisive losses on the insurgent Armenians and the better equipped Greek army. He then went on to become the dominant figure of post-war Turkish life, leading the nationalist movement to impose its version of modernization on Turkey. Mango's presentation of Ataturk is largely fair but probably contains some limitations and flaws. As a biographer, Mango's concentration on Ataturk results in an unavoidable tendency to deal with other important figures only in relation to Ataturk. It is clear from Mango's account that the success of the War of Independence and the foundation of the Turkish state was the result of the activities of a remarkable group of leaders, mainly but not exclusively Army officers who had been trained by the Germans and with considerable experience in WWI. Mango does not, and cannot, really discuss the roles of these individuals systematically. Mango also lets Ataturk off too easily for some of the crimes of the War of Independence. Clearly, there was great crimes committed by both the Greek and Turkish armies. While Ataturk does not seem to be implicated in any of these crimes, it does not seem that he made any great effort to stop them. He was not responsible for the infamous sack of Izmir (Symrna) but there is no evidence that he did anything to mitigate or prevent the violence. Ataturk was a romantic nationalist who believed strongly ethnic identification with the land. He wanted a Turkey for Turks, not a liberal pluralistic democracy. He welcomed the expulsion of ethnic Greeks from Turkey and the transfer of ethnic Turks from Europe to Anatolia. He did not approve of forcible expulsion, preferring negotiated population transfer, but welcomed the end result. Mango errs also in characterizing Ataturk as an heir of the Enlightenment who wanted Turkey to develop into a modern, European, rationalistic state. This interpretation is one of those half-truths that carries considerable weight. Ataturk, who spoke and read French with some fluency, appears to have been greatly influenced by the example of the French state. I suspect, however, that great example was not the France of the Enlightenment or even the French Revolution, but the France of the Third Republic. The latter was intensely nationalistic, centralized, anti-clerical, and modernizing in the specific sense of destroying traditional culture. This seems to be the real model for Ataturk, not Voltaire.
Rating:
Summary: I can't imagine a better account
Review: Turkey is a key player in a very important region, and it is impossible to understand it without understanding the man who left his mark so deeply in it, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. This biography helped me get some understanding on this great leader whose career has been unjustly neglected in the West. It is mostly a political biography, and thankfully it fails to emphasize the kiss-and-tell tabloid details of Ataturk's life. Author Andrew Mango is no censor and we get a complete view of Ataturk, but Mango keeps the spotlight away from prurient details. The picture Mango gives us of Ataturk is a compelling one, of a man driven to achieve power from an early age, yet, in an age of expansionist ideology, a man uniquely qualified to be the absolute ruler of his country because he knew his limits and those of his nation. Unlike the fascists and communists, Ataturk concentrated on increasing the quality of life of his people rather than increasing the size of the lands under his dominion. It is clear Mango softpeadals some major issues in Ataturk's life and Turkish history. For instance, he circumlocutes around the issue of Ataturk's bodyguards murdering a political opponent of his, and there is no mention of the Armenian genocide (which, in any event, took place during the Young Turk revolution, when Ataturk held insufficient political power to be considered at all responsible). But this is not to say he gives Ataturk a free pass -- we do get a picture of a human being from this book, not a whitewashed icon. Still, if Ataturk was arrogant, greedy for power, and created the form of democracy while never actually allowing contrary opinions to prevail, there is no question that his rule was spectacularly good for Turkey: probably better than democracy or any other dictator could have been. Even allowing for the puffery and legend that has grown up around this admired historical figure -- and Mango is expert in cutting through the laudatory nonsense that has accreted around the Ataturk legend (often with Atatiurk's own connivance) -- history presents Ataturk as a man who was right darn near as often as he thought he was. The ways he was right, and the ways he stamped his correct ideas on Turkey, have had an enormous effect on Turkey -- and, through Turkey's cultural influence, have influenced its entire region. Understanding Kemal and Kemalism, and understanding Ataturk's genius for creating an effective government out of the fragments of a dying Islamic empire, sheds new light on regional politics in a sensitive area of the globe. While we are unlikely to see a leader as great as Ataturk there again, in his ideas and legacy we can find reason for hope.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting treatment of an interesting subject
Review: Turkey is a key player in a very important region, and it is impossible to understand it without understanding the man who left his mark so deeply in it, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. This biography helped me get some understanding on this great leader whose career has been unjustly neglected in the West. It is mostly a political biography, and thankfully it fails to emphasize the kiss-and-tell tabloid details of Ataturk's life. Author Andrew Mango is no censor and we get a complete view of Ataturk, but Mango keeps the spotlight away from prurient details. The picture Mango gives us of Ataturk is a compelling one, of a man driven to achieve power from an early age, yet, in an age of expansionist ideology, a man uniquely qualified to be the absolute ruler of his country because he knew his limits and those of his nation. Unlike the fascists and communists, Ataturk concentrated on increasing the quality of life of his people rather than increasing the size of the lands under his dominion. It is clear Mango softpeadals some major issues in Ataturk's life and Turkish history. For instance, he circumlocutes around the issue of Ataturk's bodyguards murdering a political opponent of his, and there is no mention of the Armenian genocide (which, in any event, took place during the Young Turk revolution, when Ataturk held insufficient political power to be considered at all responsible). But this is not to say he gives Ataturk a free pass -- we do get a picture of a human being from this book, not a whitewashed icon. Still, if Ataturk was arrogant, greedy for power, and created the form of democracy while never actually allowing contrary opinions to prevail, there is no question that his rule was spectacularly good for Turkey: probably better than democracy or any other dictator could have been. Even allowing for the puffery and legend that has grown up around this admired historical figure -- and Mango is expert in cutting through the laudatory nonsense that has accreted around the Ataturk legend (often with Atatiurk's own connivance) -- history presents Ataturk as a man who was right darn near as often as he thought he was. The ways he was right, and the ways he stamped his correct ideas on Turkey, have had an enormous effect on Turkey -- and, through Turkey's cultural influence, have influenced its entire region. Understanding Kemal and Kemalism, and understanding Ataturk's genius for creating an effective government out of the fragments of a dying Islamic empire, sheds new light on regional politics in a sensitive area of the globe. While we are unlikely to see a leader as great as Ataturk there again, in his ideas and legacy we can find reason for hope.
Rating:
Summary: The best biography of Ataturk ever written
Review: What a wonderful book. Over the years, I have read three other biographies of Ataturk, and I can honestly say that this one is the best. For those who are unfamiliar with the history of the final days of the Ottoman Empire, and the initial days of the Turkish republic, the book gives a great history lesson, while at the the same time, telling the story of a remarkable life. The book goes into extreme detail with regard to the principle players in Ataturk's life, and gives a summary of the careers of those individuals at the end of the book as well. Mr. Mango has obviously spent many hours researching and interviewing people to compile the facts and information necessary to decribe the life of the greatest leader of the 20th century. I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in Turkish/Ottoman history. Hopefully someday a proper documentery/movie will be produced so the western world can see what a great man Kemal Ataturk really was.
Rating:
Summary: Father Turk's Story
Review: When the Turkish Republic made it mandatory for all citizens to adopt surnames, its president Mustapha Kemal selected "Ataturk" - "Father Turk" - as uniquely his own. (His sister and other relatives were not allowed to use it.) The sobriquet embodied Kemal's image of himself, which was shared by many other Turks then and thereafter. This hefty biography, written by a veteran and sympathetic observer of the Turkish scene, is more detailed and less fawning than Lord Kinross's 1964 tome, previously the best-known English life of Kemal. It is based on an extensive array of printed Turkish sources, synthesizing what a diligent modern Turk would know about Kemal if he read everything that is readily available. On the other hand, the absence of archival research leaves many evidentiary conflicts unresolved and gives the accounts of controversial episodes a "he said, she said" flavor. The focus is very closely, perhaps too closely, on Kemal himself. We are presented not only with the dramatic incidents of his exciting career (conspiracies, coups, wars, assassinations) and disorderly private life (womanizing, alcoholism, corrupt cronies, broken friendships, suspicions of foul play) but also with itineraries of his travels and summaries of numerous unmemorable speeches. The decrees of "Kemalism" - abolishing the Caliphate and the shariat, secularizing education, reforming the Turkish language, adopting the Christian calendar, granting equality to women, compelling men to wear European-style hats - issue forth from Ankara, but we barely glimpse how they were received in the country at large or how much fundamental change they truly wrought. Recent history makes it obvious that Kemal's project of detaching Turkey from the Islamic world and annexing it to his vision of Western civilization did not win unanimous support. Mango offers little help in understanding the reasons for acceptance or rejection. He also says virtually nothing about economic developments. The absence of statistics on production, incomes and trade is refreshing but leaves out important data that would place political developments in clearer context. The author's decision to limit his perspective is forgivable. "Father Turk" is a large enough subject without devoting a lot of pages to his "children". Within its confines, the book is clearly written and comprehensive, though there is a certain trailing off near the end of Kemal's life, as he took less part in day-to-day governing and acted more like a king than a dictator. That, too, was the period when he became engrossed in eccentric historical and linguistic theories (not without parallel elsewhere in the 1930's) aimed at proving that every nation that lived or ever had lived in Anatolia was "Turkish" (especially the Kurds, though not, naturally, the Armenians or Greeks). Mango mentions these follies but clearly wishes that he didn't have to. The book's overall evaluation of its protagonist is positive but not uncritical. Readers with strong partisan predispositions, whether pro or con, will find passages that will annoy or anger them. Kemal's admirers will question the generally favorable view of the Ottoman regime (termed "an inefficient and accommodating despotism" that was moving steadily toward modernity) and the emphasis on the early Republic's brutal and dictatorial ways. Critics will complain that the picture of modern Turkey is sugar-coated, that the sufferings of Greeks, Armenians and Kurds are downplayed and that the destructive side of Kemal's "cultural revolution" is ignored. So this is not the "ideal" biography of Turkey's founder. It is, nonetheless, an excellent one and is worth the time of anyone who has more than a passing interest in the largest and most powerful nation in the Middle East.
Rating:
Summary: mesmerizing book on a brilliant man
Review: Why don't we know more about Ataturk in US? We know about Mandelas, Gandhis, Ayatullha Khemenis and Perons. Even Golda Meirs. A towering historical figure who has saved his people from the occupying forces, revolutionized the Turkish landscape, his lifestory is so interesting this book did not read like your usual historical biography. No time to yawn I assure you. A movie is badly needed to introduce this great man to the whole world.
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