This book is a synthesis of the author’s now lifetime of deep and abiding personal and professional experiences that have led to his deep understanding of the American Experience, the Mediterranean World, and U.S.-Turkish relations. The narrative guides the audience to bridges, where others may see only chasms. Oh, there are chasms for sure. The reader is transported, back and forth, from East to West, across the centuries, juxtaposing geography and discovery, politics and war, religion and the arts, terrorism, key figures and human triumphs. The goal of the journey is a better appreciation for the nature of both historic and current controversies and under-recognized extraordinary contributions that lie at the heart of the East-West dynamic. This book seeks to decode some of the presumptions and misconceptions that tend to become the prisms through which both individual and state perceptions are filtered and pose as “the truth”. These truths, like beauty, tend to vary in the eyes of the beholder. "Williams's extensive knowledge of Turkey and the US permits him to present unique and provocative insights into both cultures ... readable, informative, and stimulating." Dr. Douglas E. Streusand, Professor at Marine Corps College and the Institute of World Politics "Dr. Williams has a lot to offer to both Turks and Americans, and others who want to understand these two nations, and their relationship." Dr. Soner Cagaptay, Director Turkish Research Program, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy "I commend this book as a real contribution to the body of knowledge of comparative East-West studies." Professor Dr. Tuğrul Ansay - International Legal Scholar and former Dean of the Ankara University and Koc University Law Schools "An amazing amount of knowledge, covering centuries - almost like a college education you can hold in your hand." Patricia Stone Taylor - Author and Key Editor of this book "... an ambitiously broad and original approach." Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, Vice President of Monticello, Saunders Director of R. H. Smith Center for Jefferson Studies, Professor of History at the University of Virginia