Anyway, framing things as pro- or anti- is exactly what both Turkey and the rest of Europe ought to move away from. That’s the road to propaganda, which serves neither side.

Parallels to southern Europe only work if applied to countries formerly part of the Ottoman empire, and even then are unsound.

Did Sicily acquire its very special social networks (cf “The Godfather”) because it is in Europe, or because of centuries of bad government? Was the economic development of Portugal under the Salazar dictatorship typical of Europe, or of “crony capitalism”? And as to the use of “Europe” as a synonym for “abroad” or “bloody foreigners”, is this not normal in the UK?

The Kulturkampf issue is central: who is winning? Certainly, no-one in 2000 would have predicted that the successor to Fazilet (the Virtue Party) would be in power in 2005, and that DYP, DSP and MHP would all be absent from Parliament.

Poor Atat?rk died in 1938, and the roll-back of his reforms began almost immediately. Use Google to look up the “Varlik vergisi” or property tax, introduced in 1942; very Ottoman.

In fact, understanding Turkey without looking at the Ottoman empire is very difficult. Atat?rk was as an Ottoman general and “Gazi”, before becoming the Father of the People.

Other useful books, older but better:

Lord Kinross, Atat?rk - certainly not anti-Turkey, but appropriately cautious where it counts.

Jeremy Seal, A Fez of the Heart - likes Turkey a lot, but remains capable of asking questions.

Philip Glazebrook, A Journey to Kars - Turkey in the 1980s and before; he didn’t like it very much.

And finally, do look at the latest poll on attitudes to further EU enlargement:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb63/eb63_en.htm