To t ravel int o t he past of sociology in Turkey, I have chosen to focus on two books of international acclaim that have crossed cultural borders. By tracing how these books have been actively appropriated and filtered through the conceptual grid of prevailing controversies and ongoing events in the national arena, I hope to be able to say something about the changing contours of the discipline. This is not because there is a dearth of scholarship on various aspects of Turkish society, by Turkish and non-Turkish authors. On the contrary, there is a wide literature of indisputable merit. But the landmarks that signal shifts in the trajectory of the discipline are not "influential" books. It is the mesmerizing play of political events, wars, economic crises, military coups, liberalizations that usher in moments of intense anxiety and of reappraisal, imparting a sense of new departures and breaks with orthodoxy. Of the two sensibilities out of which sociology has been historically Inolded, one intellectual, the other "livecl" and Inade of social comlnitlnent, it is the latter that dominates the field in Turkey. We tend to be driven by the urge to diagnose "lived" events and propose solutions. The push to bring a particular social reality into daylight, rendering it "understandable" in public, to the public, for the public, and proposing brave solutions often takes precedence over "understanding," analytical refinement, theoretical sophistication. The cultural imaginary and self-understanding of a sociologist in Turkey is neither that of a freefloating, "disinterested intellectual" who searches for universals in the nalne of truth, nor quite that of "social engineer" who co}nes up with practical soltltions to pressing problelns of the lnolllent. Rather, it is that of a "social diagnostician." We battle with recurring bouts of symptoms that Turkey seems to contract in its twisted historical trajectory. We tend to torment ourselves with phantasies of economic progress, and continuing aspirations for an unachieved modernity. But we remain unrepentant in our attempts to affiliate to the modern via great national or Western narratives. The 1970s decade, when Gunder Frank's name entered into theoretical conversation among sociologists in Turkey, opened with a jolting event-a military coup the second in barely a decade. At the time, it appeared that the "Turkish case" exhibited symptolns remarkably similar to those of Latin American countries. Having left behind the early republican era in favor of popular elections and more liberal economics since 1950, our country was now suffering from economic crises followed by breakdowns of democracy. Prophetically, the 1970s closed with yet another military coup, the thircl in as many decades. Hence not only sociologists, but also political scientists and economists, began to clebate the Latin American Inodel. This is not to say they read or learned about Latin American societies, their history or present. Rather, the Latin American "model" becallle a signpost in heated debates on the specificity of the "Turkish case." And the Latin American case became synonymous with the name of Gunder Frank. The beauty of Gunder Frank's work resided in rendering Latin America intelligible, without knowing anything about it. Through his work, the social determinations that shaped Latin America coulcl be graspecl in their totality, and unity. His was the voice of reigning passions, which cut through the crisscrossing intellectual debates of the Illolnent, and spoke to the hearts of Turkish sociologists. He offerecl the possibility of being a radical Marxist ancl a