2008 Reports

Empire of Difference

Barkey, Karen

It is said that often social scientists study the subjects that help explain the influences that shaped their lives, the contradictions and tensions inherent in the settings in which they lived, letting some of the personal guide the research questions of their academic lives. In many ways my encounter and choice of historical sociology as an academic field and my fascination with empire has been guided by growing up in Istanbul and by both the contrast and continuity between empire and nation-state in modern-day Turkey.