An impressive and thought-provoking book by a young journalist who finds that her carefree decision to head for Turkey as a way to understand the Muslim world via the most "Westernized" (and thus acceptable) Muslim nation in the Middle East leads her in some very unexpected directions -- including questioning her own identity. Which is the "foreign country" in the title of this book? It's hard to tell: Hansen tells the reader plenty about Turkey and its complex history (and the history of its relationship with the US) as well as about Egypt, but her long sojurn overseas causes her to look back on the US itself in much the same way that non-Americans might do -- as if it, to her, weren't her homeland but indeed just another foreign country.

Hansen is challenging our assumptions about how we think about, discuss, report on, analyze and judge what happens abroad through our own prism, and reminding us that we necessarily have our own biases that come into play in this process. Sometimes, there are questions she fails to ask or address, as when she deplores LBJ's insensitivity to both Greek and Turkish political leaders when he was trying to avert a war over Cyprus (the still-divided island off the coast of Turkey with a substantial Greek population.) LBJ's decision was straightforward: fight, and I'll yank your funding, and Greek democracy (and Turkish independent rule) will have to rely on its own resources. Hansen is scathing about this arrogance -- but however tactless the approach, would she have preferred a war, so that the Greeks and Turks could maintain their national pride and honor and not be disrespected? Or ... a third way? She doesn't extend her analysis that far. Equally, she deplores the US-supported torture of the shah's SAVAK secret police in Iran -- but fails to mention that today's Iranian regime appears to be just as adept at torture and repression, without the aid of the US, even though it also has built regional medical centers that meet the healthcare needs of its citizens better than we can do here. That's a problem that Iranians themselves protest about, as we saw during the "Green" elections. Finally, Hansen clearly believes that Americans don't understand their world, and that may indeed be true for a large portion of the population. Why? How do we alter that? (And why is it that some Americans have no problem identifying Mossadegh when asked?) We can afford to be incurious -- that's her point -- but why is it that some people do investigate the world, travel, and become knowledgeable, while others (like Hansen, it seems) have this knowledge and questioning forced upon them? So, this is a merit-worthy look at what's wrong with Americans and their myopia, but she tips a bit too far sometimes in the direction of patting herself on the back for being "woke'. At some point, it's an individual responsibility to learn, and simply deploring the state of affairs isn't enough. This is a fundamental weakness in what otherwise is a provocative and interesting book.

Those who are well-informed about the region (Egypt, Turkey, Greece, etc.) will find very little that's new, beyond Hansen's personal explorations, discoveries and anecdotes. That doesn't mean this isn't worth reading, as she does have a keen eye for the interesting and quirky as well as for the telling detail. The underlying thesis was provocative enough to warrant a five-star rating, but the book itself gets only four stars, given the aforementioned shortcomings.

As a journalist, Suzy Hansen chose to live in Istanbul in 2007 in order to complete a research fellowship. She subsequently wrote NOTES ON A FOREIGN COUNTRY which is a very important, if painful, read at times. While relaying personal experiences, Hansen provides an introspective look at Americans' privilege, disregard, and sheer lack of knowledge about other countries and their history. Hansen very bravely describes her own ignorance and struggles to understand Turkey and its people, saying, "my learning process abroad was three fold: I was learning about foreign countries; I was learning about America's role in the world; I was also slowly understanding my own psychology and temperament and prejudices – the very thing that made it so impossible to acquire worldly knowledge in the first place."

NOTES ON A FOREIGN COUNTRY is a book which invites quiet reflection upon comments such as: "Americans are surprised by the direct relationship between their country and foreign ones because we don't acknowledge that America is an empire; it is impossible to understand a relationship if you are not aware you are in one" or (quoting Moshin Hamid) "There's an America that exists inside the borders of the United States, which is a very different entity from the America that projects its force outside the United States." It is indeed difficult to grasp that contrast if one does not have an opportunity to speak with citizens of other countries or to travel or live abroad – something everyone, like Hansen, should strive to experience.

One sense of what others are thinking is available through the Global Attitudes and Trends Studies from Pew Research Center. The map below, for example, illustrates the less favorable global opinions about America in 2017: [map embedded and linked in online post] http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/26/u-s-image-suffers-as-publics-around-world-question-trumps-leadership/

It is truly difficult to fully appreciate others' perspectives and one's own biases; as Hansen says, "an objective American mind is first and foremost still an American mind." While that summary may feel overly critical to some, it should help readers to consider the potential outcomes of what Hansen calls "the American vision of its place in the world: as guardian and enforcer." Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NOTES ON A FOREIGN COUNTRY received a starred review from Booklist and merits contemplative readership, empathetic exploration, and energetic discussion.

I love the idea of seeing America from an outside lens and was looking forward to exploring this book. However, the book itself is disjointed, sort of several things at once: a memoir, a lesson in Turkish political history, a literary review of illustrative texts and, finally, a look at how a select few foreigners viewed White Americans in the years following 9/11. For me, the book would have worked better focusing on just one or two of these elements and I was bogged down with so much happening at once.

This is a book about an American living abroad in the era of American decline...As an American abroad now, [post-Iraq and Afghanistan wars] you do not have the same crazy, smiling confidence. You do not want to speak so loud. You feel always the vague risk of breaking something. In Turkey and elsewhere...I felt an almost physical sensation of intellectual and emotional discomfort, trying to understand a reality for which I had no historical or cultural understanding. I would go, as a journalist, to write a story about Turkey or Greece or Egypt or Afghanistan, and inevitably someone would tell me some part of our shared history - theirs with America - of which I knew nothing.

How does it feel to learn about your own country from the perspectives of another? It's not something that a great number of Americans experience, not like Europeans, for example, who move or at least travel to neighboring countries much more regularly than Americans tend to do.

But it's such a valuable tool to have, this outsider perspective, to learn more about our own identities as Americans and what that means in a global context, what it has already meant historically. I stress that it's especially important to Americans because we do tend to be somewhat isolated in our thinking, conditioned by decades of history where we're always painted, no matter the methodology or required military might, as the good guys. Add that to a couple centuries worth of American exceptionalism and a recent surge in populism and extreme swing of nationalism, and it can be a dangerous viewpoint if not tempered by outside perspectives.

New York Times Magazine journalist Suzy Hansen has lived in Istanbul for close to a decade. She first relocated there after winning a grant covering two years of living and writing about Turkey, but she stayed on. She was inspired to apply after seeing a documentary about the writer James Baldwin, who confessed he felt "more comfortable as a black, gay man there than Paris or New York." She was so astounded by that declaration that she needed to understand it. "I couldn't imagine how complex Istanbul could be. I now knew almost all of my perceptions of the 'East' had been muddled not only by ignorance but by deeply buried, unconscious assumptions over which I once had no control."

The narrative weaves together many elements - Hansen's decisions for choosing to depart New York for Istanbul, her comparative observations of these two cities, her experiences having her beliefs and understandings of global politics challenged and refined, some travelogue with journalistic intents, and research and interviews intended to shed light on America's influence on the Middle East and its current perception amongst the region's population. She's also remarkably well-read, and weaves the writings and observations of authors who have traveled the same paths and learned the same lessons in generations before her. Baldwin, her inspiration for the journey, and Orhan Pamuk are heavily represented, and their writings and opinions provide excellent background to her own observations, interviews, and research.

The book started out unbelievably strong. I was completely taken with Hansen's captivating writing and ability to capture a sense of place and the restlessness that often leads to moving far away. She also has an excellent talent of being able to distill complicated, sprawling histories and political events into easily readable format, so as a sort of crash course in Middle Eastern politics with a Turkish bent, this is a great primer.

However, the greater history of the region and both Turkey's and America's roles within are more complicated and complex than can possibly be presented here or in any smaller volume. There were also times that the descriptions of historical happenings slipped too far into informationally dense, history textbook-sounding territory, and I found my interest wandering.

Lest it seem it's all serious subject matter and tsk-tsking at American unawareness, Hansen employs a wonderful sense of humor when it's most needed, like in this moment of describing the ubiquitous photos of Atatürk, that great modernizer, throughout Istanbul as looking like "Dracula, other times Kevin Kline." 

Or when she handles a heavy, needs-to-be-confronted subject with humor, honesty, and even patience, like addressing America's empire-building: 

Rejecting the word 'empire' had long been a way for Americans to avoid taking responsibility for acting like one, which was a habit embedded into the American character from the moment of its birth. Americans learn a folksy, even dorky version of American history. I remember the Puritans in their funny clothes, Plymouth Rock, drawings of the Pilgrims breaking corn with the Indians, George Washington sitting on a boat in some river. Those are a child's memories, but the takeaway would be a romantic notion of struggle and discovery. From a distance, this history looks far different.

It's a sanitized version too, I'd add. Living abroad exposes the dirt that's been swept under the rug by the preferred, cleaned-up narrative.

American influence usually was not invoked with particular venom or outrage, but merely as a fact of history. Most foreigners were not emotional about it. The only person suddenly emotional was the American, me, because of course for the American nothing about this was matter-of-fact. Americans are surprised by the direct relationship between their country and foreign ones...it is impossible to understand a relationship if you are not aware you are in one.

There's a lot of world out there beyond the boundaries of what many Americans consider, and this book ought to be required reading, period. The topic is inarguably important, and this book is written mostly engagingly, so I hope it reaches a wide audience to rattle some cages and better yet, opens some eyes.

Suzy Hansen is awarded a fellowship that sends Americans abroad to report on foreign countries. Her first stop, on what turns into the better part of 10 years over seas, is to Turkey. She chooses Turkey because her favorite author James Baldwin lived in Instanbul and said "he felt more comfortable as a black, gay man in Instanbul than in Paris or New York City" which made no sense to her. She quickly learns that while she knows next to nothing about Turkey or the many other places she references throughout this book, the rest of the world is consumed by us, largely due to our interference in their soveignty. She goes on to explain in detail about our involvement in coups worldwide to include Turkeys in 1980, Greece, Guatemala, the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran etc...
Overall this is a well researched and thought provoking book about white privilege and American exceptionalism and the impact our foreign policy has on the rest of the world. Her argument is, even though we are largely ignorant and complacent doesn't mean we aren't responsible.
Thank you to Farrar Straus and Giroux publishers for making this available to me through netgalley and I hope this title finds a large readership.