The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus / Edition 1

by Vahakn N. Dadrian

Overview

"... totally innovative ... Dadrian exhibits exemplary objectivity and provides us with the fruits of a life of scholarship and research. An inestimable contribution to our knowledge of history." - Journal of the Society of Armenian Studies

"... marshals considerable evidence to show how the development of the Turkish-Armenian conflict escalated to the point of genocide ... Dadrian makes [an] important contribution to our understanding of the dynamics of the Ottoman decision to destroy its Armenian subjects." - MESA Bulletin

"[The History of the Armenian Genocide] is without doubt the most important work ever done on this subject. [Dadrian's] painstaking archival work, and [his] wide reading in the relevant sources in Turkish, Armenian, German, French and English has no parallel. The book will stand as a monument parallel to Hilberg's master work, The Destruction of the European Jews ... [He has] forced me to rethink the entire issue of comparisons and differences between the Armenian experience in World War I and the Jewish experience in World War II." - Steven T. Katz, Cornell University

"... an outstanding piece of scholarship ... based on years of meticulous study of primary sources ..." - Leo Kuper, University of California

"... the author has pioneered the sociological study of the Armenian Genocide ..." - Roger Smith, College of William and Mary, Virginia

The Armenian Genocide, though not given such prominent treatment as the Jewish Holocaust which it precedes, still haunts the Western world and has assumed a new significance in the light of "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia and, more recently, Darfur. This study by the most distinguished scholar of the Armenian tragedy offers an authoritative analysis by presenting it as a case study of genocide and by seeing it as an historical process in which a domestic conflict escalated and was finally consumed by global war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781571816665
Publisher:	Berghahn Books, Incorporated
Publication date:	12/01/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.99(d)
Lexile:	1630L (what's this?)

About the Author

Vahakn N. Dadrian (1926-2019) was director of a large Genocide Study Project sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the H. F. Guggenheim Foundation. He authored Warrant for Genocide: Key Elements in the Turko-Armenian Conflict (Transaction 1999) and co-authored with Taner Akçam of Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials (Berghahn, 2011). In 2005, he received four separate awards for his lifetime contribution to genocide studies. Vahakn Dadrian, who taught at the State University of New York (SUNY) system (1970-1991), was also Director of Genocide Research at the Zoryan Institute.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgement
Abbreviations
Preface

Introduction

PART I: HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION BY THE POWERS: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Chapter 1. Islamic Sacred Law as a Matrix of Ottoman Legal Order and Nationality Conflicts
Chapter 2. Humanitarian Intervention as a Response to Nationality Conflicts in the Balkans
Chapter 3. Escalation of the Conflicts and Ottoman Palliatives: The Origins of the Eastern Question Foreshadowing the Armenian Question

PART II: THE ORIGINS OF THE ARMENIAN QUESTION AND THE TURKO-ARMENIAN CONFLICT

Chapter 4. The Ill-Fated Internationalization of a Domestic Nationality Conflict
Chapter 5. The Interactive Dynamics of the Eastern and Armenian Questions

PART III: THE DYSFUNCTIONS OF HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION IN THE RISE AND TREATMENT OF THE ARMENIAN QUESTION

Chapter 6. Manipulative Diplomacy Supplanting the Ideals of Humanitarian Intervention
Chapter 7. The Impotence of Discordant Diplomacy: The Disconnective Vulnerabilities of the Armenians

PART IV: THE INAUGURATION OF A PROTO-GENOCIDAL POLICY

Chapter 8. The Era of Abdul Hamit Massacres
Chapter 9. The Portentousness of the Abdul Hamit Era Massacres

PART V: THE WARS AND MASSACRES OF THE NEW YOUNG TURK REGIME AND THE DEMISE OF HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTIONISM

Chapter 10. The 1909 Twin Adana Massacres
Chapter 11. The Eviction if the Turks from the Balkan Peninsula: A New Sense of Peril for Anatolia

PART VI: THE INITIATION AND CONSUMATION OF THE GENOCIDE UNDER COVER OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Chapter 12. The Legal-Political Context of Initiation
Chapter 13. International Law as a Crucible of Legal Liabilities
Chapter 14. The Implementation of the Genocide
Chapter 15. The Disguises of the Law of Deportation and Ancillary Acts
Chapter 16. The Issue of German Complicity

PART VII: THE QUEST FOR JUSTICE IN THE AFTERMATH OF TURKISH MILITARY DEFEAT

Chapter 17. Allied Attempts at Retributive Justice
Chapter 18. The Recourse to the Machinery of Turkish Justice

PART VIII: THE PUSH BEYOND DOMESTIC GENOCIDE. THE TARGETING OF THE RUSSIAN ARMENIANS

Chapter 19. The Ittihadist Thrust Against Russian Armenia
Chapter 20. The Kemalist Thrust Against Russian Armenia

PART IX: A REVIEW OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Chapter 21. The Saliency of Some of the Determinants of the Armenian Genocide
Chapter 22. Parallel Problems in the Post-War Prosecution of World War I German War Criminals
Chapter 23. The Armenian Genocide in Relation to the Holocaust and the Nuremberg Trials

Conclusion

Epilogue

Bibliography
Subject Index
Names Index

Editorial Reviews

"...a highly detailed yet accessible account." - Choice

"...totally innovative ... Dadrian exhibits exemplary objectivity and provides us with the fruits of a life of scholarship and research. An inestimable contribution to our knowledge of history." - Journal of the Society of Armenian Studies

"...marshals considerable evidence to show how the development of the Turkish-Armenian conflict escalated to the point of genocide ... Dadrian makes [an] important contribution to our understanding of the dynamics of the Ottoman decision to destroy its Armenian subjects." - MESA Bulletin

"[The History of the Armenian Genocide] is without doubt the most important work ever done on this subject. [Dadrian's] painstaking archival work, and [his] wide reading in the relevant sources in Turkish, Armenian, German, French and English has no parallel. The book will stand as a monument parallel to Hilberg's master work, The Destruction of the European Jews ... [He has] forced me to rethink the entire issue of comparisons and differences between the Armenian experience in World War I and the Jewish experience in World War II." - Steven T. Katz, Cornell University

"...an outstanding piece of scholarship ... based on years of meticulous study of primary sources..." - Leo Kuper, University of California

"...the author has pioneered the sociological study of the Armenian Genocide..." - Roger Smith, College of William and Mary, Virginia

From the Publisher

Dadrian, a former professor at SUNY, Geneseo, currently directs a genocide study project supported by the Guggenheim Foundation. The present study analyzes the devastating wartime destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire as the cataclysmic culmination of a historical process involving the progressive Turkish decimation of the Armenians through intermittent and incremental massacres. In addition to the excellent general bibliography there is an annotated bibliography of selected books used in the study. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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