"Mustafa Kemal Ataturk appeared on the world scene in the early 1920s as a triumphant war hero who eventually became the charismatic leader of the Turkish national liberation struggle. After independence, as president of the Republic of Turkey, Ataturk introduced a broad range of reforms in the political, social, legal, economic, and cultural spheres. In a new reading of his work and ideology - through a textual and contextual analysis of Kenalism in Ataturk's speeches and the official documents of the ruling Republican People's Party - Taha Parla and Andrew Davison offer fresh interpretations of the political, economic, social, and cultural goals of the Kenalist version of Turkish nationalism. They provide an astute analysis of the power and authority that Ataturk and his colleagues believed were necessary to achieve their implementation, and of the institutions created in that process." "Kemalism as an authoritarian, rightist regime is analyzed by examining its emphatic and self-conscious, corporatist ideological core. Parla and Davison show how Kemalism's conceptions of society, national identity, Islam and the state, and other fundamental political factors require a reevaluation of Turkey's democratic, secular, and modernist reputation while examining prospects for a more democratic Turkey within the Kemalist legacy."--BOOK JACKET.

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