The book explores the concept of anthropocracy, a modern political style and practice defined by Christopher Houston. It delves into how this approach shapes governance and societal interactions, emphasizing its implications for contemporary political discourse. Through clear analysis, Houston aims to provide readers with a deeper understanding of anthropocracy's role in today's political landscape.
The book explores the potential of Islamism to transcend ethnic divisions between Turkish Muslims and Kurds amid a dynamic political landscape in Turkey. Drawing from two years of fieldwork in Istanbul, it analyzes the fragmented Islamist political movement in the context of Turkey’s shift away from a repressive modernizing project. The Islamist movement's critique of Western liberalism and its embrace of Muslim ideals face challenges from rising Kurdish nationalism and the complexities of the country’s historical conflicts.
Based on extensive field research in Turkey, Istanbul, City of the Fearless explores social movements and the broader practices of civil society in Istanbul in the critical years before and after the 1980 military coup, the defining event in the neoliberal reengineering of the city. Bringing together developments in anthropology, urban studies, cultural geography, and social theory, Christopher Houston offers new insights into the meaning and study of urban violence, military rule, activism and spatial tactics, relations between political factions and ideologies, and political memory and commemoration. This book is both a social history and an anthropological study, investigating how activist practices and the coup not only contributed to the globalization of Istanbul beginning in the 1980s but also exerted their force and influence into the future.