Hugh Pope

Author, Reporter, Editor

Author: Hugh Pope

  • In Memoriam Maurice Pope

    Remembering the life of Maurice Pope, and his Classicist’s Creed.

  • My favourite Iranian cultural target

    To offer a small antidote to the mutual incomprehension that feeds the conflict between the U.S. and Iran, here’s a favourite chapter from my book Dining with al-Qaeda. In Iran, it’s best for Americans to know that what they see and what they hear is rarely what they’ll get. Especially when it comes to the…

  • From Russia, with some manufactured love

    Having my old Soviet mechanical watch smoothly ticking on my wrist feels like a reunion with an old friend. This one is especially sweet to see back in action. Firstly, it was an inaugural repair job for me by a talented apprentice watchmaker, my nephew-in-law. It is also a gift from the great, late Bill…

  • After years of hesitation, in September 2019 we finally started letting out our mountain escape in Olympos, Turkey. What were we waiting for? It’s so nice to know it is being enjoyed, and when I saw our first guest’s feedback on AirBNB I was as happy as when I got my first book review! Five…

  • ‘Amateur’, my father’s memoir

    Happy New Year! I’m delighted to share an intriguing and often funny memoir of mid-20th century life, ‘Amateur’, written by my late father Maurice Pope. Just follow this link to a downloadable PDF: https://bitly.com/AmateurByMWMPope My father died in August 2019, and you can see notes on his memorial here. ‘Amateur’ spans pre-war and World War…

  • The journey from the best to the worst of days in recent Turkish geopolitics was partly determined by a deteriorating diplomatic context. In this keynote speech for the Dutch Peace Research Foundation’s annual prizes for best new MA theses on peace, I look back on the highs and lows of two decades of change.

  • How the weeks after the 15 July coup attempt felt like in the rural hinterland of a major Turkish province.

  • How Brussels is having to get used to conflict as Europe and Middle East seem to be overlap more and more.

  • Davos for Beginners

    How to survive attending Davos without a participants’ badge – and what this summit of the global one per cents really feels like.

  • An appreciation of Istanbul’s ad hoc, chaotic pleasures, written as I leave the city after 28 years.