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From 1924 to 1946 the Republic of Turkey was in effect ruled as an authoritarian single-party regime.

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From 1924 to 1946 the Republic of Turkey was in effect ruled as an authoritarian single-party regime. During these years the state embarked upon an extensive reform programme of modernisation and nation-building. Alexandros Lamprou here offers an alternative understanding of social change and state-society relations in Turkey, shifting the focus from the state as the prime instigator of change to the population´s participation in the process of reform. Through the study of the ´People´s Houses´, the community centres opened and operated by the Republican People´s Party in most cities and towns of Turkey, and using previously unpublished archival material, Lamprou analyses how ordinary people experienced, negotiated and resisted the reforms in the 1930s and 1940s and how this process contributed to the shaping of social identities. This book will be essential reading for students and scholars of nation-building, socio-cultural change and state-society relations in modern Turkey.

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Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction

1. The People´s House
2. People´s Houses in Provincial Urban Centres
3. People´s Houses and Local Politics
4. People´s Houses vs Coffee Houses
5. Women on the Halkevi Stage
6. People´s Houses in the Countryside
7. Conclusions

Notes
Bibliography
Index

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Lamprou, Alexandros
Alexandros Lamprou teaches in the Faculty of Languages, History and Geography at Ankara University in Turkey.

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