I received my B.A. in Political Science and Economics and my Ph.D. in Political Science from Istanbul University. During my graduate years I taught late Ottoman diplomatic and political history as an instructor in the Political Science Department. I wrote my Ph.D. thesis on the political activities and thought of one of the founders of the Committee of Union and Progress, Dr. Abdullah Cevdet.
In 1981 I decided to work on the history of the Committee of Union and Progress during the period from 1889 to 1908, i.e. from its foundation to the Young Turk Revolution. Since the CUP was an underground organization, it was essential to use the organization's own papers to write its history. For this purpose I visited Albania in 1982. After examining the CUP papers there, I published the first volume of this project in 1986. The second volume appeared in 1992, to be followed by a third and final volume. Besides the original CUP documents, I have used other archival sources, including those found in the Turkish, German, Austrian, French, Swiss, Italian, Greek, and British archives.
From 1981 to the present, I have taught courses on late Ottoman political and diplomatic history, late Ottoman history, and Turkish political life, at Istanbul and Bosphorus Universities and the Turkish Naval Academy. I have also taught and conducted seminars at Columbia University, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Michigan, and the University of Chicago. At Princeton I have taught NES 433 (The Near East and the Eastern Question since 1815,) NES 439 (Nationalist Movements from Bosnia to Central Asia: 19th and 20th Centuries,) NES 543, 544 (Ottoman Diplomatics: Paleography and Diplomatic Documents,) and NES 572 (Problems in Late Ottoman & Modern Republican History.)
I supervised fourteen Ph.D. dissertations at Istanbul University, all of them on Ottoman intellectual and diplomatic history. A few examples are: "The Journal Mecmua-i Funun and Its Role in the Ottoman Enlightenment," "Cemaleddin Efgani and His Impact on Turkish Intellectuals," and "Huseyin Kazim and Turkish Nationalism."
At Princeton I have supervised six Ph.D dissertations on Ottoman-Turkish History.
Selected Publications
A Brief History of The Late Ottoman Empire
Princeton University Press, 2008
Oxford University Press, 1995
(Representative Publications)
A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire, Princeton University Press, (2008).
Young Turks in Opposition, Oxford University Press, (1995).
"Der Jungtürkenkongress von Paris (1902) und Seine Ergebnisse," Die Welt des Islams 33, (1993).
"Notes on the Young Turks and the Freemasons," Middle Eastern Studies, 25, (1989).
"Transformation of the Ottoman intelligentsia and the idea of science," Anuarul Institutului de Istorie si Arheologie A.D., Xenopol, (1987).
Bir siyasal örgüt olarak Osmanli Ittihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti ve Jon Türklük, Istanbul, (1986).
Bir siyasal düsünür olarak Doktor Abdullah Cevdet ve Dönemi, Istanbul, (1981).
