Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35468 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
* 'Twice A Stranger is a book that needed to be written, and Bruce Clark has achieved it superbly. Anyone with an interest in Greece or Turkey ought to read it' Daily Telegraph * 'Wise new book... fascinating' Sunday Times

Tribune
‘Sheds new light and meaning on an enormous exercise in ethnic engineering’

Literary Review
‘He knows Greece and Turkey deeply and at first hand, and shows admirable fairmindedness’

Customer Reviews

An Incredible Story
This is a chilling reminder of the way in which ordinary people often pay the cost of mistakes in international politics and disputes. In 'Twice A Stranger' Clarke explains how the implementation of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 led to hundreds of thousands of Turkish Christians being expelled into Greece while Greek Muslims were expelled into Turkey. The title of the book comes from an explanation given by one of the exchangees. They felt they were 'twice a stranger'; a stranger in the country they were born in as well as a stranger in the country they were forced to live in.
Clark's interweaving of the political history and personal stories creates an absorbing and readable account of a largely forgotten period of twentieth century history.
This great book could be read in conjunction with 'Birds Without Wings' by Louis De Bernieres as this gives a brilliant, personalised (if fictional) account of the exchange through the eyes of a small community in Western Anatolia.

Forgotten tragedies
I bought this book after becoming interested in the subject of the traumatic population exchanges of the 1920s in Louis De Berniers' last novel 'Birds Without Wings' (highly recommended) and because the events are still an emotive part of Greek historical consciousness. I wanted an unbiased perspective and this book provides it.

It sets out the historical background, presents a very even-balanced perspective from both Greek and Turkish sides (and, oddly, the similarities in how the events were viewed by both communities- not always negatively, despite the hardships), and has fascinating oral testimony from the dwindling survivors of those tumultuous times.

I found myself wishing there was even more of the latter.

A very-well researched and accesible book.

For further reading on the impact of the exchanges from a Greek perspective, I also recommend the excellent "Salonica, City of Ghosts".

An impartial account account of the exchange
Coming from a family which had to leave Salonica in 1912 during the Balkan Wars, I found the book very well prepared and unbiased.
Both Venizelos and Ataturk had the desire of creating -mono ethnic- nation states during the most problematic years of the history required and saw the exchange as an opportunity to stabilize their turf, which lead to great deal of suffering of individuals. For readers who are interested in this topic I highly recommend 'Salonica, city of ghosts' by Mark Mazower, 'Levander Seller' by Nicholas Stavroulakis and 'Emanet Ceyiz' by Kemal Yalcin.

I especially liked the final section of the book as it is intriquing a question in the readers' mind about the future of homogenious nation states in the fast globalizing world. To be more precise, how will Turkey be able to coop to become a member of the European Union with its heavily protected, single nation state ideology, with nearly non existent Christian population.

Will Turkey be able to tolerate/live in a multi ethnic state?
I personally beleive that, having surged from the ruins of an empire with multi religion, multi ethinicity; which in a way, lead to its collapse and with a xenophobic population this is going to be challanging for the Turks but not impossible.
However, the bigger question is, will european union and its population be able to live side by side, as equal individuals with 70 million Turks especially during a time where Muslimophobia is fast spreading?