Hugh Pope speaking at the UW Madison on April 24th

Journalist Hugh Pope, former bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal in Istanbul, and author of SONS OF THE CONQUERORS: THE RISE OF THE TURKIC WORLD will be speaking at the University of Wisconsin in Madison on Monday, April 24, at 7:00 pm. Pope will speak on "Journeys through the Turkic World: New Connections along the Old Silk Road," in the Fluno Center auditorium, 601 University Ave. The talk, illustrated with slides, is free and open to the public. More info can be found here.

With a scope ranging far beyond the physical boundaries of Turkey, SONS OF THE CONQUERORS provides a vivid picture of the descendants of the nomad armies who once conquered China and the Byzantine Empire. He shows the myriad connections that live on between Turks in the Xinjiang province of western China (one of that country's few remaining bastions of rebellion), through Central Asia, Iran, Iraq, the Netherlands, Germany (where Turkish can be heard on every other street corner of Berlin), and all the way to the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. Along the way he reassesses a history in which, before their ascendancy was broken by the rising power of Europe, Russia and China in the past two centuries.

SONS OF THE CONQUERORS was chosen by The Economist as a "Best Book of 2005," and if you asked me, it's worth checking out because it's an area of the world that Westerners in general--but Americans in particular--know shamefully little about.

You can also catch Hugh's interview on Wisconsin Public Radio's "Here on Earth" program on Sunday, April 23rd at 3pm CST, or Thursday, April 27th at 8pm CST. or you can check back here for the archive.

--John Mark