Introducing new evidence from more than 600 secret Ottoman documents,
this book demonstrates in unprecedented detail that the Armenian
Genocide and the expulsion of Greeks from the late Ottoman Empire
resulted from an official effort to rid the empire of its Christian
subjects. Presenting these previously inaccessible documents along with
expert context and analysis, Taner Akçam's most authoritative work to
date goes deep inside the bureaucratic machinery of Ottoman Turkey to
show how a dying empire embraced genocide and ethnic cleansing.Although
the deportation and killing of Armenians was internationally condemned
in 1915 as a "crime against humanity and civilization," the Ottoman
government initiated a policy of denial that is still maintained by the
Turkish Republic. The case for Turkey's "official history" rests on
documents from the Ottoman imperial archives, to which access has been
heavily restricted until recently. It is this very source that Akçam now
uses to overturn
the official narrative.The documents presented here attest to a
late-Ottoman policy of Turkification, the goal of which was no less than
the radical demographic transformation of Anatolia. To that end, about
one-third of Anatolia's 15 million people were displaced, deported,
expelled, or massacred, destroying the ethno-religious diversity of an
ancient cultural crossroads of East and West, and paving the way for the
Turkish Republic.By uncovering the central roles played by demographic
engineering and assimilation in the Armenian Genocide, this book will
fundamentally change how this crime is understood and show that physical
destruction is not the only aspect of the genocidal process.
