Between Two Empires

by A. Holly Shissler

"The life of Ahmet Agaoglu (1869-1939) spanned a period of momentous developments in Europe and the Middle East: world-shaking revolutions in Russia in 1905 and 1917 and in Ottoman Turkey in 1908; the First World War; the defeat of the Central Powers and triumph of the Entente; the Turkish War of Independence and establishment of the new Turkish nation state under Ataturk; and the establishment of the new state of Azerbaijan. This is the intellectual biography of a major player in many of these events, that brings these turbulent times into sharp relief. His was a life lived on the cusp of intellectual and political ferment, and at the principal meeting-point of the Great Powers with Turkey, Persia and the Caucasus, where the great matters of 19th and early 20th century diplomacy were played out against the dynamic rise of nationalism and the nation-state."--Jacket.