He completed his PhD at Humboldt University, Berlin, in 1998. He works on socio-economic, intellectual and political processes of modernization in the late Ottoman Empire, modern Turkey and the Balkans, and the history of construction of national identities and nation-states. He is the author of Demiryolundan Petrole: Chester Projesi (1908–1923) (From railways to petroleum: The Chester project [1908–1923]) published in 2000. He is currently working on a monograph on Shemseddin Sami Frashëri.