Celal Nuri: Young Turk Modernizer and Muslim Nationalist is a product of meticulous research and a thought-provoking book. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the intellectual and political history of the late Ottoman and early Turkish republican periods.

Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association

Norman’s richly researched book provides significant insights into twentieth-century Turkish history. As one of only a handful of works written in English on late Ottoman and republican Turkish intellectuals, it is a noteworthy contribution to the field.

Turkish Studies

"York Norman’s authoritative intellectual biography of Celal Nuri, gives us an engaging and critical history of the competing visions of modernity during the transition from Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic. Kemalist narratives of history claimed a natural and inevitable continuity from late Ottoman crisis of Empire to the modern Republican reforms and Turkish nationhood. Norman’s masterful account of a prolific and influential figure of this transition, Celal Nuri, demonstrates the existence and legacies of alternative projects of Westernization, nationalism and Muslim modernity among the Turkish speaking elites."

Cemil Aydin, Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA