This is the first in-depth study of the secret society called CUP (Committee of Union and Progress), based on their own papers. It pays special attention to the Young Turks as an intellectual movement which continues to influence the thinking of Turkish intellectuals in the 1990s. It also provides important insights into diplomatic relations between the Ottoman Empire and the so-called Great Powers of Europe at the turn of the century.

When Mustafa Kemal Ataturk became the first president of Turkey in 1923, he set about transforming his country into a secular republic where nationalism sanctified by science--and by the personality cult Ataturk created around himself--would reign supreme as the new religion. This book provides the first in-depth look at the intellectual life of the Turkish Republic's founder. In doing so, it frames him within the historical context of the turbulent age in which he lived, and explores the uneasy transition from the late Ottoman imperial order to the modern Turkish state through his life and ideas. Shedding light on one of the most complex and enigmatic statesmen of the modern era, M. Sukru Hanioglu takes readers from Ataturk's youth as a Muslim boy in the volatile ethnic cauldron of Macedonia, to his education in nonreligious and military schools, to his embrace of Turkish nationalism and the modernizing Young Turks movement. Who was this figure who sought glory as an ambitious young officer in World War I, defied the victorious Allies intent on partitioning the Turkish heartland, and defeated the last sultan? Hanioglu charts Ataturk's intellectual and ideological development at every stage of his life, demonstrating how he was profoundly influenced by the new ideas that were circulating in the sprawling Ottoman realm. He shows how Ataturk drew on a unique mix of scientism, materialism, social Darwinism, positivism, and other theories to fashion a grand utopian framework on which to build his new nation. Now with a new preface, this book provides the first in-depth look at the intellectual life of the Turkish Republic's founder.

This book will completely transform the standard interpretation of the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, a watershed event in the late Ottoman Empire and a key to the emergence of the modern nation-states in the Middle East and Balkans.
Preparation for a Revolution is the first book on the Young Turk Revolution to draw on both the extensive memoirs and papers of the Young Turks and on the extensive diplomatic archives around the world. The author has plumbed not only the Ottoman Archives but collected documents from archives in Bonn, Berlin, Jerusalem, London, Paris, Rome, Athens, Sofia, Tirana, Bern, Geneva, Sarajevo, Cairo, Stockholm, and Tokyo. Breaking new ground, Hanioglu describes in detail how practical considerations led the Young Turks to sacrifice or alter many of their goals for social transformation. He tells a story rich in character and plot, and reveals the many factions and competing intellectual trends that marked this tumultuous period at the end of the Ottoman Empire.
Preparation for a Revolution will prove indispensable to anyone working on the political, intellectual, and social history of the Ottoman Empire and of the states that were established on its ruins.