Book review


By Şerif Yenen
560 pages


Internet Address: "www.turkishodyssey.com”

Şerif Yenen has worked as a tourist  guide for
many years.
His  Turkish  Odyssey  is an invaluable work in
English about the historv, culture, geography,
customs  and  daily  life  of  this  ancient  land.

Thousands of years after that first long journey was  recorded by Homer, this book is a fresh look at the setting of that epic story.

Yenen has learnt by experience what most interests  foreign  visitors  to Turkey, and presents a comprehensive map of Turkish culture.

The  book  opens  with  these  famous  words  by  the 6th   century   BC philosopher   Heracleitus,   “Evervthing  flows  and  nothing  stays”,  and continuies  with  a  quotation from Bozkurt Güvenç entitled “We Turks!... Who are we?”, so introducing readers to the enigmatic process of change which runs through the history of Turkey and the Turks. As home to so many civilisations, cultures and religions over the millenia.

Anatoia‘s history is an ever shifting kaleidoscope.

Turkish Odyssey is successful built on the metaphor of a journey through this ever changing landscape, illustrated by over 250 professional photographs, 3 CD computer animations, original maps and city plans, and a substantial glossary.

Browse through subject sections ranging from history, geography, and demography, to state policy, Anatolian culture, and regional tours.
As well as fascinating facts this website is packed with useful information for everyone, such as distances between large towns weights and measures conversation tables, and a chronology of Anatolian history.

It is this combination which makes Turkish Odyssey well worth looking out for. For the past five months it has been available as a website, and has now also been published as a book. Whether on paper or screen, this is the perfect way to prepare for the real thing.


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