Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past
by Peter Balakian
from Broadway
The author of four volumes of verse, Peter Balakian writes with the precision of a poet and the lyricism of a privileged suburban child in 1950s New Jersey. He is shadowed by his relatives' carefully guarded memories of past trauma: the brutal Turkish extermination in 1915 of more than a million Armenians, including most of his maternal grandmother's family. Balakian seamlessly interweaves personal and historical material to depict one young man's reclamation of his heritage and to scathingly indict the political forces that conspired to sweep under the rug the 20th century's first genocide.
The first-born son of his generation, Peter Balakian grew up in a close, extended family, sheltered by 1950s and '60s New Jersey suburbia and immersed in an all-American boyhood defined by rock 'n' roll, adolescent pranks, and a passion for the New York Yankees that he shared with his beloved grandmother. But beneath this sunny world lay the dark specter of the trauma his family and ancestors had experienced--the Turkish government's extermination of more than a million Armenians in 1915, including many of Balakian's relatives, in the century's first genocide.
In elegant, moving prose, Black Dog of Fate charts Balakian's growth and personal awakening to the facts of his family's history and the horrifying aftermath of the Turkish government's continued campaign to cover up one of the worst crimes ever committed against humanity. In unearthing the secrets of a family's past and how they affect its present, Black Dog of Fate gives fresh meaning to the story of what it means to be an American.
A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility
by Taner Akcam
from Holt Paperbacks
“The definitive account of the organized destruction of the Ottoman Armenians . . . No future discussion of the history will be able to ignore this brilliant book.”—Orhan Pamuk
Beginning in 1915, under the cover of a world war, some one million Armenians were killed through starvation, forced marches, and mass acts of slaughter. Although Armenians and the judgment of history have long held the Ottoman powers responsible for genocide, modern Turkey has rejected any such claim.
Now, in a pioneering work of excavation, Turkish historian Taner Akçam has made unprecedented use of Ottoman and other sources—military and court records, parliamentary minutes, letters, and eyewitness reports—to produce a scrupulous account of Ottoman culpability. Tracing the causes of the mass destruction, Akçam reconstructs its planning and implementation by the departments of state, the military, and the ruling political parties, and he probes the multiple failures to bring the perpetrators to justice.
As the topic of the Armenian genocide provokes ever-greater passion and controversy around the world, Akçam’s work has only become more important and relevant. Beyond its timeliness, however, A Shameful Act is sure to take its lasting place as a classic and necessary work on the subject.
The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response
by Peter Balakian
from Harper Perennial
A History of International Human Rights and Forgotten Heroes
In this national bestseller, the critically acclaimed author Peter Balakian brings us a riveting narrative of the massacres of the Armenians in the 1890s and of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. Using rarely seen archival documents and remarkable first-person accounts, Balakian presents the chilling history of how the Turkish government implemented the first modern genocide behind the cover of World War I. And in the telling, he resurrects an extraordinary lost chapter of American history.
Awarded the Raphael Lemkin Prize for the best scholarly book on genocide by the Institute for Genocide Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice/CUNY Graduate Center.
The History of Armenia (Palgrave Essential Histories)
by Simon Payaslian
from Palgrave Macmillan
Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War
by Thomas de Waal
from NYU Press
View the Table of Contents.
Read the Introduction.
Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2003
"Brilliant."
—Time
"Admirable, rigorous. De Waal [is] a wise and patient reporter."
—The New York Review of Books
"Never have all the twists and turns, sad carnage, and bullheadedness on all sides been better described-or, indeed, better explained . . . Offers a deeper and more compelling account of the conflict than anyone before."
—Foreign Affairs
"This book is a major milestone in the Western scholarship on Karabakh."
—Armenian Freedom Network
"This book is helpful because in order to craft a final resolution to the conflict, one must understand what events transpired in the first place. De Waal's book significantly contributes to this purpose and establishes itself as one of the standard works for understanding this conflict."
—Parameters
"Some of the most illuminating - and alarming - reading in de Waal's book includes the battle of historians and writers on both sides. They fire polemical missiles at each other through bscure history and literary journals, denigrating and, in some cases, obliterating the history and identity of the other side."
—Eurasianet
"Only rarely does a university press publish such a gripping, poignant book as this. . . . This is an impressive work of careful scholarship and vivid writing."
—Choice
"De Waal is cautious, meticulous and even-handed, and the breadth of his research is remarkable. He shows real affection for the ordinary people on both sides, and restraint in dealing with the self-serving politicians and field commanders in both Armenia and Azerbaijan who used Karabakh for their own political and pesonal ends."
—Time (Europe)
Black Garden is the definitive study of how Armenia and Azerbaijan, two southern Soviet republics, got sucked into a conflict that helped bring them to independence, bringing to an end the Soviet Union, and plaguing a region of great strategic importance. It cuts between a careful reconstruction of the history of Nagorny Karabakh conflict since 1988 and on-the-spot reporting on its convoluted aftermath.
Part contemporary history, part travel book, part political analysis, the book is based on six months traveling through the south Caucasus, more than 120 original interviews in the region, Moscow, and Washington, and unique primary sources, such as Politburo archives.
The historical chapters trace how the conflict lay unresolved in the Soviet era; how Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders exacerbated it; how the Politiburo failed to cope with the crisis; how the war began and ended; how the international community failed to sort out the conflict.
What emerges is a complex and subtle portrait of a beautiful and fascinating region, blighted by historical prejudice and conflict.
The Knock at the Door: A Journey Through the Darkness of the Armenian Genocide
by Margaret Ajemian Ahnert
from Beaufort Books
In this riveting book, first-time author Margaret Ajemian Ahnert relates her mother's terrifying experiences as a young woman during the oft-overlooked Armenian genocide in Turkey at the beginning of the twentieth century. At age 15, Ahnert's mother was separated from her foster family during a forced march away from her birth town of Amasia. She narrowly avoided kidnapping, faced unspeakable horrors at the hands of soldiers, and was forcibly married to an abusive Turkish wagon-driver. Throughout her ordeal, she had faith and reminded herself that "this, too, will pass," a mantra which enabled her to survive these nightmarish experiences. Eventually, she escaped captivity and was able to make her way to America.
Ahnert's compelling account of her mother's suffering is framed by an intimate portrait of her relationship with her 98-year old mother. The reader sits with Ahnert in the Armenian Home as she cares for her mother and listens to the sometimes awful, occasionally funny, and always inspiring stories of her mother's turbulent life during a terrible period in human history.
Survivors: An Oral History Of The Armenian Genocide
by Donald E. Miller
from University of California Press
Between 1915 and 1923, over one million Armenians died, victims of a genocidal campaign that is still denied by the Turkish government. Thousands of other Armenians suffered torture, brutality, deportation. Yet their story has received scant attention. Through interviews with a hundred elderly Armenians, Donald and Lorna Miller give the "forgotten genocide" the hearing it deserves. Survivors raise important issues about genocide and about how people cope with traumatic experience. Much here is wrenchingly painful, yet it also speaks to the strength of the human spirit.
The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians
by Donald Bloxham
from Oxford University Press, USA
The Great Game of Genocide addresses the origins, development and aftermath of the Armenian genocide in a wide-ranging reappraisal based on primary and secondary sources from all the major parties involved. Rejecting the determinism of many influential studies, and discarding polemics on all sides, it founds its interpretation of the genocide in the interaction between the Ottoman empire in its decades of terminal decline, the self-interested policies of the European imperial powers, and the agenda of some Armenian nationalists in and beyond Ottoman territory. Particular attention is paid to the international context of the process of ethnic polarization that culminated in the massive destruction of 1912-23, and especially the obliteration of the Armenian community in 1915-16.
The opening chapters of the book examine the relationship between the great power politics of the 'eastern question' from 1774, the narrower politics of the 'Armenian question' from the mid-nineteenth century, and the internal Ottoman questions of reforming the complex social and ethnic order under intense external pressure. Later chapters include detailed case studies of the role of Imperial Germany during the First World War (reaching conclusions markedly different to the prevailing orthodoxy of German complicity in the genocide); the wartime Entente and then the uncomfortable postwar Anglo-French axis; and American political interest in the Middle East in the interwar period which led to a policy of refusing to recognize the genocide. The book concludes by explaining the ongoing international denial of the genocide as an extension of the historical 'Armenian question', with many of the same considerations governing modern European-American-Turkish interaction as existed prior to the First World War.
From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide
by Taner Akçam
from Zed Books
Never Again, Again, Again...: Genocide: Armenia, The Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur
by Lane H. Montgomery
from Ruder Finn Press, Inc.
A powerful photographic essay with text on the six major genocides of the 20th and 21st centuries: Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda and Darfur. More than a chronicle of dates and death tolls, it gives a personal history of victims, perpetrators and consequences. With texts by Terry George, Dr. Richard Hovannisian, Amb. James Rosenthal, et. al.
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