'Britain and Turkey in the Middle East' is the first book to understand the development of the Cold War in the Middle East by exploring the Turkish case and is crucial to grasping the nature of Western strategy in general and British and Turkish strategy in particular during this period.

In the first work documenting Anglo-Turkish relations in the Middle East in the early Cold War period, Mustafa Bilgin identifies two very distinct stages in the relationship between Britain and Turkey. Before 1952 Turkey relied heavily on Britain to protect it from the 'Soviet menace'. In return for Britain's support, Turkey acted as an honest broker in Britain's increasingly difficult relations with key Middle Eastern states such as Egypt, Iran and Iraq. However, Turkey's realisation that it could not rely on Britain, encouraged by Britain's blocking of Turkish membership of NATO in 1952, led to a new alliance between Turkey and the US.

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Mustafa Bilgin is Assistant Professor of International History at Kahramanmaras Sutcu Imam University, Turkey.