Turkey: Adnan Menderes, populism, and history

Turkey and 50s Prime Minister Menderes, Erdogan today, and how history is used for political power. Matthew Sweet is joined by Jeremy Seal, Ece Temelkuran, Michael Talbot & Nilay Ozlu.

Before his execution in 1961, the Turkish prime minister Adnan Menderes saw Turkey admitted to NATO, investment in agriculture, education and health care, but also conflict with the Greek community. On 17 February 1959 he was involved in a plane crash near Gatwick on his way to a conference about Cyprus. Jeremy Seal traces his story and looks at the parallels with President Erdogan's Turkey now in a new book. He talks with journalist and author Ece Temelkuran and presenter Matthew Sweet. Plus new research on the Ottoman Empire from Michael Talbot and Nilay Ozlu.

Jeremy Seal's book A Coup in Turkey: A Tale Of Democracy, Despotism & Vengeance In A Divided Land is out now.

Ece Temelkuran is the author of How To Lose A Country: The 7 Steps From Democracy To Dictatorship; Turkey - The Insane & The Melancholy; novel The Time Of Mute Swans; and a forthcoming book, Together: 10 Choices For A Better Now.

Michael Talbot is an historian at the University of Greenwich and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker.

Nilay Ozlu is an architectural historian and Chevening Postdoctoral Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.

Matthew Sweet's journey on London's 29 bus route with researchers looking at the history of the Greek Cypriot Community in London: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00014qk

Ece Temelkuran on Dictators, alongside Francesca Santoro L'hoir who acted alongside Chaplin as a child, Peter Pomerantsev and Frank Dikotter: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009bf3

Interviews with Turkish author Elif Shafak: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00066qd; and at the Free Thinking Festival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04nqtrt

Alev Scott and Michael Talbot on the Ottoman Empire: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000qj7

Producer: Emma Wallace