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Anyone who buys the book is wasting their money and time by a grumpy nationalist. His work is not scholarly; it is filled with propaganda, deceit, unverifiable information, and references to KNOWN forgeries. The author Vahakn Dadrian (who is clearly biased because he is an Armenian nationalist and receives grants from the Armenian government) has used the forgeries called the Aram Andonian (an Armenian's forgeries) documents. These forgeries were used throughout the book to prove a thesis that the Ottoman Turks who allowed religious freedoms and minority rights to the Armenians were somehow evil masterminds comparable to the Nazis--this is absurd.
City of Van murderings before July 10 1915- And after Russion armies invation of Eastern provinces. Could be a very good book if he was objective. I found it very baised toward to his own background nation. Never mensions killing their own patriach in Istanbul , cause he did not agree with dashnac organization. Unfortunatly failed. he implements that Armenians are Crafty and peace loving people. He never mentions in 1840 city of Maras, Ottoman military outpost, 400 Officer and solders taken prisoners by 5000 armenian mob and their ears and noses cut off and tortured to deadth (Before 1878-1894-1896-and so on).
Even Russian generals at the scene, who witnessed these heinous acts, called them the most barbarous race they had ever seen". The number of Armenian deaths have been greatly exaggerated. It is amazing that Armenians can rewrite history based on forged documents and lies. They believed the lies of colonial European powers, such as Russia, Britain, France, with the promise of an independent state, and attacked the Ottoman Army from the rear. Most of the deaths were caused by attacking Kurdish and Circussian bandits for revenge and booty. "They raped any Turkish women they found. They stuffed the innocent Turkish elderly men, women, and children,into their mosques and burnt them alive.
The rewiver is saddened by loss of life suffered by the Armenians during the re-location process. Calling this relocation a genocide is disingenous, at the very least.
While the Turkish men were at war fighting at many theathers of war, the Armenian men stayed home, because they were exempt from military service. Any other country would have punished them much more severely for these treasonous and barberous acts.
Armenians were some of the richest Ottoman citizens that held high positions in the government. The Ottoman government re-located them out of the war zone, in self defence.
The Ottoman Government was unable to protect them any better, because the country was in turmoil, at the time, due to the great war. Armed with the weapons given to them by the Allies, they massacered hundreds of thousands of unarmed innocent Turkish civilians.
They extracted the babies from expecting Turkish mothers with their bayonets.
The authors wide reading in the relevant sources in Turkish, Armenian, German, French and English, has no parrallel. It's an extremely well researched book. I highly reccommend this book to anyone interested in this subject. I had heard a lot about this book and I just finished reading it, I am quite familiar with the subject matter but in my oppinion this is the best. I think this book is a great contribution to the historical understanding of the Armenian Genocide and of Genocide in general.
Dadrian uses Austrian and German diplomatic archives at a time when they were Ottoman Turkey's wartime allies, he references the memoirs of architects and implementators of the genocide where they incriminate themselves, he cites the Turkish trials after the war to punish the Young Turks published in the official Turkish government gazette at the time(Takvimi Vekayi), Ataturk's speeches, eyewitnesses, Allied diplomatic archives, Turkish historians such as Refik and Akcam, and Turkish sociologist Ismail Besikci, who attest to the reality of the Armenian genocide. This man has been studying the Armenian genocide for decades and it shows, I doubt much is written in the languages he can read about the subject that he has not already read, and most of it seems cited in this work. How Turkish historians and other historians can deny the Armenian genocide shows to anyone who has read this work their complete lack of honor and decency, to comment on history with no other desire than to extricate Turkish society and state from their mis-actions. This study took an interesting approach, despite its title it has little about the actual implementation and excecution of the Armenian genocide instead covering topics such as: the Abdul Hamit Massacres, the Adana massacres, the bank Ottoman raid, Islam's bent for domination which implies inferiority for non-muslims dhimmis such as Armenians, German complicity, the failure of European humanitarian intervention due to their vested and colonial interests, the Young Turks, how the precarious situation of Armenians constantly massacred and vulnerable with little weaponry or outside diplomatic assistance made them contrary to Balkan Christians take the route of asking for reforms and protection within the Ottoman Empire instead of seeking their independence as they were in an existential crisis where they decided upon the failed project of seeking protection from a Turkish system that thrived on repression and oppression, the Kemalist invasion of Russian Armenia, a comparison of the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide, the Turkish post-war tribunals that failed to punish the key players of the Armenian genocide(but these trials did provide proof of the intent to destroy the Armenians), the role of impunity during and after the genocide and earlier massacres in the failure to punish muslims for their crimes and how the implacable Kemalists along with European vested interests made sure there was little in the way of punishment, among other topics. With such evidence how can one deny the Armenian genocide, and claim to be honest or better yet, a member of humanity. Such an approach to this study makes ensures that it is well covered why the Armenian genocide occurred, which is more important than drudging page after page about the actual genocide and its implementation, which would have gotten tedious as this book is over 400 pages. Chapter 14 entitled: "The Implementation of the Genocide" only spans from page 219-235 in the edition I read(second revised edition 1997). The scholarship of Dadrian shines throughout the work, he cites countless works in Turkish, Armenian, German, French and English and the work is very well referenced with a plethora of footnotes.
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