In these two volumes, Feroz Ahmad focuses on crucial period of Turkish modernisation; from Young Turks to Turkish Republic and the relationship between the Committee of Union and Progress and Modern Turkey. He traces the work of generation of reformers; engineers of a new social structure, as well as events that shaped the modernisation path. These articles especially deal with the period since the 1908 revolution, examining the process by which the new Turkey was formed. Ahmad also underlines the crises of legitimacy that characterized much of the period.
Feroz Ahmad was a Turkish-American academic, historian and political scientist who taught at different universities, including the University of Massachusetts Boston, Tufts University, Harvard University, Columbia University and Yeditepe University. He was one of the leading scholars studying modern history of Turkey.