Suchergebnisse

The Lost and Untold History of the Kurds: Rediscovering the Beginning of the Western Civilisation and the Origin of the IndoEuropean Languages ca. 10000 BC–1300 CE, by Soran Hamarash. Sulaymaniyya, Iraq: self-published, 2022. 349 pages.

Salafism and Biological Evolution: Online Salafi Reflections on the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, by Jean-Francois Letourneau.Jean-Francois Letourneau. Amazon, 2021. 121 pages. $4.11 paper, e-book.

Religion, Identity and Power: Turkey and the Balkans in the Twenty-First Century, by Ahmet Erdi Özturk. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021. 238 pages. $100.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan — Turkey's current president (elected 2014) and former prime minister (2003–2014) — infamously once declared that "democracy is like a train; you get off once you have reached your [real] destination." In other words, one can use democratic means to achieve authoritarian goals. Analyzing Erdogan's imaginary train journey, one must conclude that the Turkish leader never had the intention of reaching democracy. Indeed, now that he has achieved his actual authoritarian goal, he has jumped off the train. However, his journey did not always seem to be destined for such a terminus. Indeed, in his first decade in power, Erdogan won three parliamentary elections by ever-larger shares of the popular vote because he had helped to build Turkey into a burgeoning economic powerhouse and a moderate Islamic democracy. In the past decade, however, despite winning Turkey's first popular election for president in August 2014, presiding over another great parliamentary victory in November 2015, and then winning re-election as president as well as retaining control of parliament in June 2018, Erdogan's increasing authoritarianism has helped precipitate an accelerating crisis both domestically and externally for Turkey. His actions have also negatively affected the Kurds. Although his partial setback in the local elections held in March and June 2019 did seem to affect his hold on power, his seemingly successful creation of a Turkish safety zone in Northern (Syrian) Kurdistan in October 2019 revived his flailing domestic fortunes.

This paper scrutinizes why the United States (US) refused to recognize the People's Republic of China (PRC) for three decades after its foundation by Mao Zedong in 1949. The traditional national character influenced the position of the US toward the PRC, especially in light of its abhorrence of communism and its doctrine to contain its spread. For both domestic and foreign reasons, the US argued that China was not a responsible member of the world community, and thus deserved no recognition. For more than two decades, the US applied political, economic and diplomatic pressure on the United Nations to refuse the PRC the right to represent China. The situation only began to change when the Nixon administration realized how its non-recognition policy was becoming increasingly outdated and self-defeating, given China's growing importance in international affairs. This paper will use a variety of primary and secondary sources to analyze the US policy of non-recognition of the PRC, providing the background for a better comprehension of contemporary Sino-American relations.