Hoover Institution Press today released Torn Country: Turkey between Secularism and Islamism, by Zeyno Baran. In Torn Country, she examines the intense struggle between Turkey’s secularists and Islamists in their recent battle to define Turkish identity.

“Which way Turkey drifts will determine which way the region and the world drift. It will affect us all. We all need to know much more about Turkey and Zeyno Baran’s book is the perfect place to start,” said Melik Kaylan of Forbes.com.

In Torn Country, Baran explains how the next decade will be decisive in determining Turkey’s political future, as Turkish voters consider whether to preserve, revitalize, or replace the secular democratic system that has defined their national identity since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1923. Baran details the roots of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which seeks to replace elected governments and secular law with Muslim regimes guided by religious law. Baran further explains the political tensions that have arisen between the AKP and its secular opponents over what it means to be “Turkish.” Baran claims that the key foreign policy test for Turkey and its Western allies in coming years includes insulating their fifty-year partnership from the strains posed by some of the AKP’s Islamist convictions and ambitions.

Zeyno Baran is a contributor to the Herbert and Jane Dwight Working Group on Islamism and the International Order, and a senior fellow and director of the Center for Eurasian Policy at the Hudson Institute. Before joining Hudson, Baran directed the International Security and Energy Programs at the Nixon Center.

For more information on Torn Country, visit HooverPress.org. For more information on the Hoover Institution, visit Hoover.org or find us on Facebook (keyword: Hoover Institution).