Hugh Pope as a delegate to the 8th Congress of Turkic Peoples in Samsun, Turkey, in 1999. Even if tainted by association with nationalist groups, the gray wolf remains a legendary symbol for most Turkic peoples.

Born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1959, Hugh Pope read Persian and Arabic at Oxford University and speaks Turkish. He has written from 30 countries during 25 years of travels in the Turkic world and broader Middle East, reporting for the Independent, Los Angeles Times, BBC and Reuters. For most of the past decade, he ran The Wall Street Journal's news bureau in Istanbul.

Pope's writing has also appeared in the Australian Financial Review and the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. He has lectured widely, including at London's Royal Academy of Arts and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He is now preparing a new book on the Middle East.

Click here to see CSPAN BookTV's broadcast of Hugh Pope's lecture on the Turkic World