Burning Tigris, The: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response (Hardcover)

by Peter Balakian (Author) "The light in New England in late fall is austere and clean and rinses the white steeples of Boston's Congregational and Unitarian churches, the red..." (more)
Key Phrases: key indictment, race extermination, genocide scholars, United States, Red Cross, Young Turk (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Now faded from memory in the shadow of the Holocaust, the Turkish slaughter of more than a million Armenians in 1915-1916 was a virtual template for the 20th-century horrors that followed, and much of what Balakian describes so powerfully is now chillingly familiar: inhuman brutality; mass deportations of helpless civilians (often in overcrowded railroad boxcars); headlines screaming of "systematic race extermination"; activists and intellectuals calling for intervention; and, most devastatingly, the lack of political will in the West to intervene to stop the slaughter. Balakian exposes the roots of the genocide in the "total war" atmosphere of WWI, which combusted with the pan-Turkish nationalism of the Young Turk government, inflamed Muslim rage against "infidel" Armenian Christians, and a long-simmering Ottoman hatred of the Armenians dating to Sultan Abdul Hamid II and his slaughters in the 1890s. Balakian, who wrote so movingly of the impact of the genocide on his own family in Black Dog of Fate, also underscores how well known the Armenian destruction was in America through detailed reports by U.S. consuls throughout Turkey and steady newspaper reporting, and how great the response was in providing humanitarian assistance to refugees and survivors. In a horrifying account, city by city, region by region, Balakian quotes firsthand testimony about the decimation of the Armenian population and their towns and culture. Yet he retains the measured tone of a historian throughout; if anything, he lets Woodrow Wilson off too easily for not declaring war on Turkey. But readers will come away sadly convinced that Armenians' brave but doomed stand in Van should be as celebrated as the Warsaw ghetto uprising, and the corpse-strewn Lake Gaeljak as well known as Babi Yar. 16 pages of b&w photos and maps not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Culminating in the organized murder of more than one million Armenians in 1915, the Armenian genocide was both a systematized continuation of violence begun in the nineteenth century and a chilling premonition of larger and more systematic European genocide to come. A detailed account of the "hidden holocaust" sewn together from archival research and the testimony of survivors, this selection also documents another tragedy: America's response to the crisis. In the 1890s, led by William Jennings Bryan and Theodore Roosevelt, among notable others, American Protestants felt a sympathy for the plight of their fellow Christians that was both heartfelt and fashionable. It was, argues Balakian, an inaugural moment for the American defense of international human rights. Yet political concerns kept Woodrow Wilson from declaring war on Turkey, and by the late twentieth century, moral clarity sadly erodes in the face of cold war necessity and oil-driven foreign policy. Even today, Turkey denies that a genocide ever took place. In this important book, Balakian proves adept at presenting both human horror and political tragedy. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; 1 edition (September 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060198400
• ISBN-13: 978-0060198404
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (103 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #638,177 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

111 of 118 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A people Killed Twice, November 28, 2003

By A Customer

I am a book collector on Near Eastern history, the way you can tell a book is well researched and written is by the referencing and the bibliography contained in the book.I must say that this book has an amazing bibliography which includes books written mainly by non-Armenians and were printed before, during and directly after the events which occurred. On the other hand almost every book which is printed to deny the Armenian Genocide uses only recently published books which were published by other denialists.

In 1985, the UN Committee on Human Rights published a report declaring the Ottoman Empire responsible for the massacres of the Armenians in 1915 and 1916. Two years later, the Council of Europe agreed that Turkey's refusal to recognise the genocide was an insurmountable obstacle to Turkey's admission to the EU. By the end of 2000, the European Parliament, France, Sweden, the Vatican and Italy finally acknowledged the Armenian genocide. Of the major powers, only the US, Canada and Britain still hold back. There are too many conflicting interests at stake. Turkey, for instance, threatened to deny the US use of its air bases if President Clinton agreed formally to accept the massacres as a genocide.

Turkey has offered funding for academic programmes in the universities of Princeton and Georgetown. Three years ago, UCLA's history department voted to reject a $1m offer to endow a programme in Turkish and Ottoman studies because it was conditional on their denying the Armenian genocide. Professor Colin Tatz, director for the Centre for Comparative Genocide Studies at Macquarie University, in Sydney, Australia, claims that Turkey has used "a mix of academic sophistication and diplomatic thuggery . . . to put both memory and history into reverse gear".

The majority of Turks remained ignorant of the genocide while it was happening, and have since. Mehmet Ergen, a 34-year-old London-based Turkish theatre director, confirms, "In our Turkish schools we never learnt about our history. The Armenian massacre was never mentioned. In London I heard that the Kurds were told that if they killed the Armenians they could take their lands. So they did, and then the Turks killed the Kurds." Ergen, a multiculturalist, laments Turkey's denial of "its own historical mosaic". He says, "even Turkish theatre owes its birth to Armenian writers and actors. Armenian, Greek and Jewish culture has vanished, and Turkey is the loser."

As Thomas Bürgenthal, an Auschwitz survivor, lawyer and member of the UN Human Rights Committee, says, "I don't know why the Turks can't admit it, express sorrow and go on. That is the worst. You do all these things to the victim and then you say it never happened. That is killing them twice."

93 of 99 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kemalist denial of genocide exposed, December 13, 2003

By A Customer

First I like to say this is most important work on the genocidal ethnic cleansing of Ermeni people from Anatolia. I am Turk and I am from the area where the Ermeni were killed that is mentioned in the book, Hazar Golu. Around this lake are buried thousands upon thousands of Ermeni. Everybody who lives around here knows this is truth! They know Ermenians were killed like sheep not fighting! In my family village Ermeni lived peacefully, strangers came and murdered all of them! No deportation, no relocation. My grandfather tells me this. Only people who lie about this are kemalists who profit from illegal government of Turkiye. The kemalists who deny Ermenian Jenocide in reviewing this book are the grandchildren of those who killed the Ermenians. It is their interest to lie. Turkish government is built upon the bones of the Ermenians, Greeks, Suriyani, Zaza, and Kurds. Who does jenocide and admits to it? Nobody! Germans did not say even when they were killing Jews! It was "relocation" just like what the kemalist government of Turkiye says today. There two types of people in Turkiye today: kemalists and the good people of Turkiye. I hope this book will be translated to Turkish. This book tells the truth about everything Turkish government did and does to the Ermenian people. The most important chapter is on Turkish work to lie today about what happened. Many Ermenian village and homes are empty even today. I hope when the kemalist government and their agents leave power forever, the Ermenian people come back to their properties and villages and live happy lives. This book could be a stepping stone to a confederation of Anatolian peoples.

75 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It made me weep, October 4, 2003

By A Customer

and it made me proud to learn of America's first international human rights endeavor and the many acts of altruism carried out by State Department officials as well as by grassroots Americana -- from Sunday schoolers to Clara Barton and more --to save Armenian lives during the tragedy of the horrific Armenian Genocide. From the opening sentence one can see Balakian writes with a poet's eye but his heart and soul belong to historical witness and testimony. This scrupulously researched and detailed account will not disappoint and will keep readers turning pages. Finally a clear concise eloquent historical narrative of the 20th century's first genocide.