Erdogan Rising: The Battle for the Soul of Turkey

Everyone has heard of Erdogan, the bullish Turkish President who pulled his democracy back towards dictatorship. This is the inside story of his blazing path to power, and what a populist Turkey means for the rest of the world.

Hannah Lucinda Smith, Turkey correspondent with The Times, has been on the ground in Turkey since the onset of the Arab Spring. From the frontlines of the wars in Syria and eastern Turkey, through the refugee crisis and the attempted coup against Erdogan, she traces how chaos in the Middle East has blown back on a country that was once heralded as the model of Islamic democracy. Talking to key insiders, she paints a vivid portrait of Erdogan’s relentless, unusual position of power, and his descent from flawed democrat to staunch authoritarian.

Erdogan Rising is a story rooted in Smith’s first-hand experiences of a country divided, told through the eyes of a rich cast of characters. She journeys into the Turkey where Erdogan’s following devotedly compose songs in his honour, adorn their houses with his picture, and lay down their lives to keep him in power. But on the other side – sometimes just a few hundred metres down the road – she also meets the Turks who are mourning the loss of the country they once knew.

Erdogan Rising serves as a chilling warning of democracy’s fragility, a full-scale picture of the sway Turkey holds, and a revelation of how much people can change.