In this book, Umut Uzer examines the ideological evolution and transformation of Turkish nationalism from its early precursors to its contemporary protagonists. Turkish nationalism erupted onto the world stage in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as Greeks, Armenians, and other minority groups within the Ottoman Empire began to seek independence. Partly in response to the rising nationalist voices of these groups, Turkish intellectuals began propagating Turkish nationalism through academic as well as popular books, and later associations published semipropagandist journals...

World War I and the fall of tsarist Russia brought brief independence to Azerbaijan, but by 1920 the Bolshevik revolution pushed south with the twofold purpose of accessing the oil-rich fields near Baku on ?the Caspian Sea and spreading communism into the Caucasus. Azerbaijan, the richest and earliest significant source of oil in the world, was the first republic in the South Caucasus occupied by the Red Army, which then advanced into neighboring Armenia and Georgia. Pulling from confidential, newly accessed archives, Hasanli describes Soviet Russia's aggressive policy toward the three South...