The reforms of the 1920s and the 1930s constituted a comprehensive effort to remake the people of Turkey in the image of a modern, Western society. By passing a series of laws and creating new institutions, the early Republican government regulated people’s dress, language, public behavior, and even their religion. Yilmaz examines the formulation and especially the implementation of several of these reforms. Rather than spending time discussing how these reforms were conceived in Ankara, Yilmaz takes a non–state-centered approach to examine what happened when these measures crossed the imaginary line dividing the state from society and intervened to alter people’s lives.
Yilmaz’s decision to de-center this history is more than just a methodological choice. Focusing on that uncertain zone in which state power and social forces interact allows her to show that the Turkish reforms were more than a one-way imposition on a passive society. Yilmaz discovers that the...