British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize

 WINNING TITLE 2019

Sevket Pamuk
Uneven Centuries: Economic Development of Turkey Since 1820 (Princeton University Press)

This work was described as ‘extraordinary’, indeed one which ‘only a small handful of scholars would be qualified to attempt, much less master, given the chronological and subject range it covers’. The reviewer sees the book as ‘two books in one. In its broader narrative, the author masterfully reviews and synthesizes an extremely wide body of secondary literature, covering everything from international finance in the nineteenth century, to the history of education and health care and the ebbs and flows of Ottoman and Turkish politics and contemporary social change.

‘The ability of the author to introduce his own first-hand contributions to long-term economic indicators and integrate this seamlessly into the narrative allows for a unique comparative framework over time and place which helps situate Turkey’s economic performance alongside that of the rest of the world. As our reviewer commented: “The result is a magisterially definitive guide to Turkish economic history that is clearly written and cogently explained”.’

Anonymous reviewer

Şevket Pamuk is Professor of Economics and Economic History (Part-Time Faculty) at Bogaziçi University.

RUNNER UP TITLES 2019

Elias Muhanna
The World in a Book: Al-Nuwayri and the Islamic Encyclopedic Tradition
(Princeton University Press)

This was described as ‘a very fine piece of original research. A most impressive contribution to our knowledge of Mamluk history and culture’. In this book, Elias Muhanna has described and analysed meticulously and clearly the contents of the colossal encyclopaedia of the early 14th century Egyptian scholar, al-Nuwayri; entitled Nihayat al-arab fi funun al-adab (The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition). Elias Muhanna considers why and how al-Nuwayri wrote this grandiose work and he analyses how it was received by al-Nuwayri’s contemporaries and by later Muslim generations as well as by scholars in Europe.

The work was called a ‘courageous enterprise’. The reviewer commented that ‘it is important to remember that, even today, few scholars of classical Arabic literature or Islamic history have taken on the onerous task of studying giant-sized classical Arabic encyclopedias’.

Elias Muhanna, Associate Professor Comparative Literature and History at Brown University, is a scholar of the medieval and early modern Islamic world. His research focuses on the history of encyclopedic writing in the Islamic world and Europe, the cultural production of the Mamluk Empire (1250-1517), and the problem of the vernacular in different historical settings.

John McManus
Welcome to Hell? In Search of the Real Turkish Football
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

This book was described as providing a ‘superb and valuable contribution to the academic and non-academic literature on current Turkey as well as the evolving study of the nexus of sports, politics and society in the Middle East.’

McManus ‘brings the skills of both an anthropologist and a journalist and a novelist’s touch to the book. His command of Turkish is evident in his research and he is able to not only provide solid descriptions and analysis, but also evoke the texture, emotion and passion that characterizes Turkish football’.

The book is a journey into the heart and soul of the sport and the developments McManus chronicles in Turkish sports as well as Turkish politics reflect global trends. In short, ‘McManus has written a book that is likely to attract readers with different interests ranging from sports to geopolitics. The reader will walk away from the book enriched irrespective of his or her specific interest’

John McManus is an anthropologist and writer based in Ankara, Turkey.

Shortlisted Titles

Anne F. Broadbridge
Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire
(Cambridge University Press)

Jane Hathaway
The Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Harem: From African Slave to Power-Broker
(Cambridge University Press)

Christian C. Sahner
Christian Martyrs under Islam
(Princeton University Press)