Customer Reviews

Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

This is a necessary, long overdue work reminding us that the ethnic sufferings in Caucasia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Balkans during the last 200 years were not all one sided. Many thousands of Moslem families suffered the same tragedies and walked the same dreary road into exile as their Christian neighbors. The massacres and wholesale population transfers were mutual and massive. Conventional wisdom in the West about the tragic events listed in this book is sadly one-sided. McCarthy has made a valuable contribution to remind people of the complex reality of these issues.

McCarthy has unearthed a horrifying and extremely important fact: that in the course of the century between the Greek war of independence and World War I, the Ottoman Empire suffered five and a half million dead and five million refugees. He deems this Europe's largest lost of life and emigration since the Thirty Years' War. Christian suffering in this time and place is well-known; McCarthy shows the other side, that "Muslim communities in an area as large as all of western Europe had been diminished or destroyed." His study minutely reviews the regions and wars, pulling information from foreign and Ottoman sources to produce a compelling account.

Beyond the tragedy involved, this pattern of death and exile has a profound historical importance. To take just three matters that the author raises: It puts into perspective the deportation of Armenians in 1915 and turns this from an act of hatred into one motivated by fear (had the Armenians, with Russian support, rebelled, Ottoman Muslims could have expected to be slaughtered). Also, this legacy explains the modest and circumspect foreign policy pursued by Atatürk; "as a land of recent refugee in-migration and massive mortality," his country was ready not to assert itself but to reform itself. Lastly, the massive immigrations to Anatolia mean that modern Turkey is (like France) a land of migrants; McCarthy estimates that one-fifth of the population descends from nineteenth-century refugees. This helps understand the country's acute sensitivity to current problems in Bosnia and Azerbaijan.

Middle East Quarterly, June 1996

Finally a comprehensive account of the history of conflict between Armenians and the Ottoman state that is not written by a pseudo-Armenian scholar propped up by the Armenian diaspora community. This books tells it like it is, with plenty of factual research. It's shameful really that the Armenians tried to use their religion to persuade people in the US and Europe to believe their lies. This was particularly true of the diaspora in the US that was desperate for an ethnic identity and the Turks were easy targets as they were Muslims against whom there was a already a prejudice (due largely to the then small number of American Muslims and a general ignorance in the US at that time about Muslims). So the Armenians used this very deftly to win favor in the West, and cried on anyone they could find--and threatened, bribed or blew up the rest. They still deny the Turkish holocaust!!!

The Muslim population of the Ottoman Empire has suffered greatly in the final decades of this world power that dominated most of the Middle East, North Africa, the Caucasus and the Balkans for over 500 years. McCarthy sheds light on how Ottoman Muslims - who were in many cases indigenous people who converted to Islam of the lands over which the Ottomans ruled - were persecuted and forced out of their homelands during the wave of nationalistic revival in the Balkans - and on the exodus of Turks that fled Russian expansion in the Caucasus and Central Asia. During the same years in which the old imperialist powers such as Britain, France and the Russian Empire were fomenting nationalistic fires within the Ottoman's Christian population, only to then turn around to demand exclusive protections from the Ottoman Court for them, Muslims all over were killed, persecuted and forced to migrate to Ottoman Anatolia. McCarthy fills a historical information gap by demonstrating demographically the enormous population changes that uncover this sad story scientifically. McCarthy also does justice to a controversial subject by placing the Turkish-Armenian conflict into the background of intercommunal clashes taking place against the backdrop of World War I, and by providing more realistic demographics for the Armenian population and casualties which have been consistently inflated by Armenian researchers.

I've been trying to educate myself on the Armenian-Turkish controversy and I have to say this book has really opened my eyes. Before reading the McCarthy book all I knew and heard were the ARmenian grievances and their one-sided story.

This book is a guide, for those who'd like to see a fair handed analysis. No, Justin McCarthy is not a hired gun as some of the Armenian symphatizers have claimed here. Don't go out making ridiculous allegations against our Academia when what's said doesn't serve your cause! McCarthy is a damn good American professor who is interested in bringing clarity to a historical dispute that's been going on for far too long.

This is the first time I am reading a book which is covering the massacres of Turks and non-Turkish Muslims during a 100 years period. Almost each sentence in the book is being proved by the reliable sources. There is no way to say this is untrue or didn't happen for any event described in the book. I would like to thank to Justin McCarthy for his detailed research and objective approach. It is so sad to see how millions of Turkish and Muslim people were being tortured and killed and how the world turned its face to the other side and ignored this long-term genocide. Unbelievable!

Having read through the book and understanding that it touches on a number of issues that are obviously sensitive to some I must say I found it rather thin on detail and far too sweeping.

The book is concerning the Ottoman Muslims as defined by the Bosnian, Albanian, Bulgarian Turk, East Anatolian, Tatar and Caucasian Muslims who were murdered, raped, forcibly deported and had their land and property stolen during the Balkan war and Russian expansion.

Specific areas the book covers are Greece, Bulgaria, Eastern Anatolia, The Crimea and the Caucuses. Brief mention is made of Albania also. One of the main problems with the book is it covers such a vast geographical area and historical period that its attention to real detail is a little thin. It covers history from the Balkan wars up to the formation of the Turkish republic. It would be like writing a 368 page book on the history of Central Europe during world wars one and two and expecting to have detail on the various war crimes, massacres, and population expulsions. I feel it would have been a lot better if he had remained on one specific area such as the Balkans (Much in the same way he covers the Armenian rebellion in Van)

McCarthy is correct in stating that the plight of Ottoman Muslims is largely unknown in the West and a large part of Greek , Bulgarian and Balkan history has been airbrushed. Where he is over simplistic is in his assumption that everyone in the west regards history as some kind of "civilization vs barbarianism" and that regardless of the results conquest of a people of a different religion or ethnic group is something celebrated.

I also feel McCarthy has gotten himself a little too caught up in the official historical line of most Balkan countries "Turkey forged out of the ashes of an Empire" "The Greeks deep knowledge and pride in their history" etc.... It is doubtful that village Greeks in Central Anatolia had time to study Greek epics any more than the Turkish villager in Bulgaria or southern Greece sat about reading the Shahname.

The book also fails to answer some points such as the Russian push into the Caucuses. Why would the Russians simply depopulate an entire Geographical area, repopulate it with "Russians" (Does he mean Cossacks?) and then offer the local Muslims the choice of expulsion or removal to another part of the Russian empire? Was it simply conquest or was it for strategic reasons in which case, is this not the same argument the Turkish government uses for the deportation of Armenians during WW1? Why did the Russians choose to put Armenian families in Georgian ares when there are ethnic differences and conflicts between the two groups (Was McCarthy not aware of this when he decided to share with us that information?) Or was McCarthy far to concerned with seeing the conflict as "Christian Vs Muslim"?

This is a fascinating subject and one that is rarely studied (which is why I give it 4 stars) I would however, recommend the books of Shaw or Inalcik over McCarthy based upon this one (Though I did find his "Armenian rebellion in Van" Much better) I feel because he has tried to make this book more of a "General history" one he has skimmed far too many subjects and lacked real attention to detail.

I have deliberately not mentioned his chapters on Armenia and the conflict in Eastern Anatolia as looking at previous reviewers if you say there was a genocide then you are anti/Muslim anti/Turk if you say there was not you are an "Irvin holocaust denier" Hopefully the time will come when amazon wises up and actually publishes customer reviews and not customer rants on its website.

This book is a great study. I was having difficulties to find information about masacres comitted on Muslim communities of Ottoman Empire.

I noticed that in many countries, Armenian propaganda and lobbying associations made this kind of study impossible, by threatening editors.

Thanks God, freedom of seech is still garanteed in USA.
In France, Turks are totaly censored... :(

McCarthy's book is the result of an excellent research of the historical documents and archives.
ONE-FOURTH O THE MUSLIM POPULATION IN ANATOLIA AND BALKAN DURING 1821-1922 HAD BEEN LOST.
The civilian people of the Eastern Anatlolian villages massacred by the Armenian people without discriminating if they were women, children, or the old. Numerous Mass-Graves are the proves this historical fact.
Despite this fact, there are still fanatic people claiming the opposite in order to make their guilt forgotten. Why does Armenia still not open it's archives? Why can the Armenians still not show any historical proof of theis claims?
Thousands of Armenians had to go on exile at the end of the 1st World War. Why? Because they had massacred so many villages and so many innocent people, it was impossible for them to live there anymore. They were taken under arms joining onto the Russian and French Army. And this Armies have taken the Armenians with them to Russia and France at the end of the war.
Besides all, how can you explain, that the Turks, who lived with Armenians over 900 years, gave them the position of a Vezir (minister), called them 'loyal people', allowed the refoundation of the Armenian Patriarchate in istanbul(1461), charged almost no taxes from Armenians, sudenly decide to kill all Armeinans?
There is no logical explanation, except the fanatic lies.
Despite tall these facts, why have the Turks not asked for an apology and explanation from the Armenians? Why have the Turks kept silent for almost 100 years?
Because after the foundation of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk wanted to open a white page and end all the hostility with the oppents in the war. Not to forget that there were Armenians still living in Turkey.
Unfortunately this have been misunderstood.
McCarthy also found out in the British archives, that the Blue Book was told to be written by the British secret service in order to gain the popularity of Armenia in the cold war against Russia.
This book is of great value, because it shows the historical facts. Whether you like them or not. As long as you cannot show another facts you must accept them.

This book reveals historical truth about suffering of millions of innocent Muslims who has been raped, killed, exiled (I'm one of their descendants). It also reveals disgusting double standard of western societies claiming to be "civilized". They're responsible for genocide of millions in the first degree. Even today, they continue to be ignorant about the issue. Otherwise how can we explain recurrence of the history: Armenian savagery against Azerbaijani Turks, Russian brutality against Chechens and Crimean Turks, Serbian barbarism against Bosnians and Albanians?

This book is a must read for those who wants to learn real history. It should be compulsory textbook for secondary scools worldwide.