With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I came the emergence of new nations, chief among them was Turkey. It was the creation of one man, Mustafa Kemal, who dragged his country from the Middle Ages to teh 20th century, and in defeating Western imperialists inspired the cause of the East. Lord Kinross writes of the intrigues of empires, the brutalities of civil war, personal courage - showing the reader Ataturk, the incarnation of glory - as well as of Kemal's youthful ambition, and his problems with his wife.