This title is a re-evaluation of the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, a seminal event in the late Ottoman Empire and in the emergence of the modern nation-states in the Middle East and Balkans.

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.

From the fervent scrawlings of the Young Turks themselves, the reader of today is exposed for the first time to the intimate thoughts of these turn-of-the-century revolutionaries who, despite their own success, would hasten the downfall of an empire they had sought to save. While the immediate value of the work is its historical specifics, it is the insights into an uncanny and remarkable continuity of existence that is perhaps the readers greatest reward.