Learning to Read in the Late Ottoman Empire and the Early Turkish Republic

Benjamin C. Fortna
Palgrave Macmillan

Learning to Read tells the story of learning to read against the background of the transition from Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic. It begins with the premise that the history of learning to read and reading, remarkably understudied for this region given its importance, can tell us much about the arrival of the modern period in general and the Ottoman-to-Republican transformation in particular. Investigating by turns the messages imparted to young readers, the experience of mastering the basic mechanics of reading, the arrival of new types of reading materials, the role of illustration, the emergence of books and magazines as commodities and the ways in which literacy changed people's lives, this book provides a multifaceted approach to reading during a period of rapid change. It demonstrates the reading's crucial importance to the modern history of Turkey.

Table of Contents

List of Figures 

Preface 

Acknowledgements 

Abbreviations 

Note on Transliteration, Dates and Surnames 

Introduction: Reading Empire, Reading Republic 

Reading Represented 

Context and Content 

Mechanics: Text and Image 

Commodification and the Market 

Lives of Reading and Writing 

Conclusion: Reading and Modernity 

Notes 

Bibliography 

Index 

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