For another, no less comprehensive, that postwar government promulgated an alphabet reform that replaced Arabic script with Latin letters, so that, apart from a few scholars, Turkey is now “a society that cannot read its own newspapers, letters and diaries if they were written before 1928. For one thing, in the post–World War I era, the so-called Young Turks who had led the genocide were still in power and ordered the destruction of countless incriminating documents. Akçam, writing from the safe distance of the University of Minnesota, has worked through thousands and thousands of documents to find concrete evidence thereof, against considerable difficulty. No one knows how many Armenians died at Turkish hands in the 1910s, but the number almost certainly exceeds one million. Beyond its timeliness, however, A Shameful Act is sure to take its lasting place as a classic and necessary work on the subject.Turkish historian Akçam capably refutes those who deny the Armenian genocide, who will probably not change their minds. 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.Īs 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. 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. Although Armenians and the judgment of history have long held the Ottoman powers responsible for genocide, modern Turkey has rejected any such claim. No future discussion of the history will be able to ignore this brilliant book.-Orhan Pamukīeginning in 1915, under the cover of a world war, some one million Armenians were killed through starvation, forced marches, and mass acts of slaughter.
The definitive account of the organized destruction of the Ottoman Armenians.
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