Turkey is a relatively new country even though it has a long history. Turks who had been living in Anatolia for a millennium intermingled with peoples belonging to different religions and ethnic groups. From the end of the eighteenth century onward that rich cultural experience became even more variegated by the process of Westernization. Turks opted for this new cultural transformation by their own volition; it was not imposed on them. To their way of thinking "civilization" meant European civilization, and it had to be imported with both its roses and its thorns. Unlike other countries in the Middle East, Turkey developed amicable relations with Western countries. Consequently, although Turkey may be described as both Eastern and Western, its Western characteristics are more marked. Turkey entered the twenty-first century as one of two Muslim countries with a democratic system of government, the other country being Indonesia, a far...