Istanbul - Between the Global and the Local

This book examines the effects of the globalization process in the context of Istanbul, one of the world's oldest and largest cities. Istanbul is often considered a bridge between East and West, or Islam and Secularism, or frequently as an arena for struggle between them. The authors gathered in this book see a more complex Istanbul shaped by an ongoing struggle through the city's spirit and the identities of its inhabitants, going beyond such clichés: an Istanbul changing with globalization, and "Istanbulites" who sometimes resist, sometimes try to understand and adapt to the transformations globalization brings to the city, transforming and reshaping it...

Ayfer Bartu, Tanıl Bora, Sema Erder, Çağlar Keyder, Ayşe Öncü, Martin Stokes, Jenny White, and Yael Navaro-Yaşın, with their contributions, shed light on the city's recent past, full of conflicts and compromises, from politics to culture, from humor to music, from public spaces to housing; a map of Istanbul's present, "a bundle of problems and contradictions," emerges with rich theoretical/conceptual tools...