Golden Horn
.1101° WHETHER as Byzantium, Constantinople or Istanbul, for I bed twenty-five centuries the City of the Golden Horn has 1 d coveted for its strategic and commercial potentialities. Poste the crossways, it can form either a link or a barrier between. ic) and West by land and between North and South by water. P0101 power is a national corollary to its other advantages' Turkey's special position in the framework of the free. 1'6 today is not due merely to the fact that she holds t- e position. Though the importance of that position cannot be exaggerated, it would be wasted in the hands of a Weal‘ $ decadent people. At its height the Turkish Empire was a weighty factor. n 113j its finger well into the European pie. The victory of Molle$:/ the sixteenth century carried the Crescent far into EuroP CI ct, r311 not long after we find Turkey the ally of the King of A dV tee- But decline set in and the history, especially of the nine of century, shows the evil which results from the presen0}ce e 1.
weak power on the Straits. The Sublime Porte became a c ss - source of dispute between the European powers. Three yea g5 successors of Mohammed the Conqueror celebrated the 500th Pi anniversary of the capture of Constantinople. Strong, homoge- °MI°eons and nationally conscious, the Turks have come into their Of This emergence in fewer than fifty years from the stagnation of
the
uttoman Empire constitutes one of the most remarkable 10) 4ehbr.vements in history, Mr. Philips Price traces the metamor- OSI from its earliest sources to its climax. For centuries there of dormant in the Turkish people qualities which it required only tile sunshine of freedom to awaken. Mr. Philips Price shows that the „ eaplier Turks were receptive to outside influences. The t'uroPean conquests of Murad in the fourteenth century !di engendered an appetite for Europeanisation. ist "see set free, this open-mindedness blossomed into a regime `,XPressive of the high qualities of the race. It was left to Atatilrk t, urn Turkish eyes finally westward and to transform what had ueeh a slice of Asia in Europe into an outpost of Europe in Asia. lioAtl Turkey's friends should understand what this means. Old „t 'essions and false notions are apt to linger, if only in back- Waters. Mr. Philips Price has rendered a valuable service in making avaiLable so complete and compendious account. The table of "nteMs alone suffices to depict the extraordinary crescendo of 11 °regress and the fact that nemily half the book is required to 131 P.01., %leer the achievements of the last thirty-two years proves the ena llsitY a the effort. The degree of success is shown in the pjers on the political, social and industrial life of modern
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