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A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility by [Taner Akcam]

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Taner Akçam

A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility Kindle Edition

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A landmark assessment of Turkish culpability in the Armenian genocide, the first history of its kind by a Turkish historian

In 1915, under the cover of a world war, some one million Armenians were killed through starvation, forced marches, forced exile, and mass acts of slaughter. Although Armenians and world opinion have held the Ottoman powers responsible, Turkey has consistently rejected any claim of intentional genocide.

Now, in a pioneering work of excavation, Turkish historian Taner Akçam has made extensive and unprecedented use of Ottoman and other sources to produce a scrupulous charge sheet against the Turkish authorities. The first scholar of any nationality to have mined the significant evidence—in Turkish military and court records, parliamentary minutes, letters, and eyewitness accounts—Akçam follows the chain of events leading up to the killing and then reconstructs its systematic orchestration by coordinated departments of the Ottoman state, the ruling political parties, and the military. He also probes the crucial question of how Turkey succeeded in evading responsibility, pointing to competing international interests in the region, the priorities of Turkish nationalists, and the international community's inadequate attempts to bring the perpetrators to justice.

As Turkey lobbies to enter the European Union, Akçam's work becomes ever more important and relevant. Beyond its timeliness, A Shameful Act is sure to take its lasting place as a classic and necessary work on the subject.

Print length

497 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Metropolitan Books
Publication date

August 21, 2007
File size

1119 KB
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The story of the Ottoman Empire's slaughter of one million Armenians in 1915—a genocide still officially denied by the 83-year-old modern Turkish state—has been dominated by two historiographical traditions. One pictures an embattled empire, increasingly truncated by rapacious Western powers and internal nationalist movements. The other details the attempted eradication of an entire people, amid persecutions of other minorities. Part of historian Akçam's task in this clear, well-researched work is to reconcile these mutually exclusive narratives. He roots his history in an unsparing analysis of Turkish responsibility for one of the most notorious atrocities of a singularly violent century, in internal and international rivalries, and an exclusionary system of religious (Muslim) and ethnic (Turkish) superiority. With novel use of key Ottoman, European and American sources, he reveals that the mass killing of Armenians was no byproduct of WWI, as long claimed in Turkey, but a deliberate, centralized program of state-sponsored extermination. As Turkey now petitions to join the European Union, and ethnic cleansing and collective punishment continues to threaten entire populations around the globe, this groundbreaking and lucid account by a prominent Turkish scholar speaks forcefully to all. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Akcam has attracted considerable attention for being one of the first Turkish intellectuals to devote his career to studying the systematic slaughter of one million Armenians during World War I. For this reason, he has been harshly criticized by those who would deny the existence of an Armenian genocide. Akcam's earlier work, From Empire to Republic (2004), contextualized the genocide within a climate of Turkish nationalism and attempted to provide the basis for a Turkish national conversation about trauma and culpability. Although essentially similar to that book in its analysis of Turkish culpability, his latest study is considerably broader in historical scope. He seeks to harmonize the conventional narrative of the collapsing Ottoman Empire with victims' perspectives of Turkish dominance over minorities. He does this by showing a state--rent by internal power struggles and terrified of being partitioned--that pursues genocide as a way of avoiding catastrophic collapse. Clearly a companion to Peter Balakian's Burning Tigris (2003) and other accounts of the genocide, this book also deserves to be read in concert with recent works analyzing the politics of genocide and national shame in Germany. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00A3PJ9T0
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Metropolitan Books; 1st edition (August 21, 2007)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 21, 2007
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1119 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 497 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #1,008,771 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #191 in History of Turkey & the Ottoman empire
- #809 in Turkey History (Books)
- #1,591 in History of Eastern Europe

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80 ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

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Brian Koontz

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2017

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This book is a wonderful history of pre WWI Armenia

One person found this helpful

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Vahé Achikian

The Armenian Genocide told by a brave Turkish historian

Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2015

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Finally a brave and matter-of-fact account of the history of WW1 Ottoman Turkey and the evil Tehcir Law which led to the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1916 and the extetmination and forced deportation of Ottoman Armenians from Turkey. İndeed Dr. Akçam makes no excuses or rebuttals for justifying the massacres and ateocities but rather in full honesty retells the true history of the Armenian massacres of WW1 on the lands of Ottoman Turkey based on his own research and to-date unrevealed Ottoman historic archives and documents from the 1913-1921 period. This is a must-read for all Ottoman historians, particularly for liars and deniers of truth such as Justin McCarthy and Stanford Shaw's bastards that are alive today.

7 people found this helpful

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MarchHare

Best Explanation for the Turkish People's Denial of the Genocide

Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2009

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This is an extremely well-researched book by a Turkish scholar who is obviously trying his best to make his countrymen see that denying the obvious will not advance their cause. It attempts to provide them with a reasonable (and more advantageous) route to acceptance and respect than does simply throwing money at American professors and congressmen to spout their propaganda. But apparently most Turkish readers are too thick to get it: either they haven't bothered to wade through the admittedly turgid writing to see what he's actually saying, or their knee-jerk reactions to his "anti-Turkishness" get in the way of their comprehension. ((Hey, Turks! Psst! He's actually provided you with the first and only plausible excuse for claiming ignorance of the facts! Read up!))
Unfortunately for the Turkish government, this excuse does not apply to them, most of them being at first the same cast of characters (with a change of name) as the perpetrators of the genocide, and, later, their descendants. But for the majority of the Turkish people, an explanation of sorts is made: In 1915, 95% of all Turks were illiterate. (Armenians, on the other hand, were not, education being a very basic and highly prized value.) After WWI, among the sweeping reforms instituted by the Young Turks was the switch from an Arabic to a Roman alphabet, thus rendering most original documents of the era incomprehensible even to educated modern-day Turks. Of COURSE they're going to deny such barbarism, butchery and inhumanity as being part of their recent history! Who wouldn't?! Who would willingly claim it? (I'm sure their grandparents came home and boasted of their cruelty!! "TODAY? Oh, I raped and beheaded a few 14-year-old Armenian girls and made their little brothers watch before raping them too and throwing them all into the river. How was YOUR day, dear?" Not.) Also worth noting: the grandchildren of Kurds living in the formerly Armenian towns of the Anatolian plateau are open with their admission of their grandfathers' complicity in the genocide: apparently these grandfathers complained to their families that they were promised a gold coin for each Armenian head, but the Turkish government never paid up! (And even now the Turks are trying to wipe out the Dersimi Kurds again (a repeat of their genocidal actions against the Kurds in 1934) by destroying the unique, beautiful and very fragile eco-system of the region by creating unnecessary dams - really just to cover up the evidence of their bloody past against both Armenians and Kurds. Somebody please stop them.)

18 people found this helpful

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José Sarukhán

a very good, well researched and o the point account of ...

Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2015

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a very good, well researched and to the point account of the planning and execution of the first genocide of the twentieth century. We have the moral obligation not to ignore and to remember these "dark sides" of the history oh humankind

14 people found this helpful

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BernardZ

Yes a shameful act

Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2008

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This obviously is a political book on a controversial past event. Since I know little on this subject so I bought this book to learn more on this subject but unfortunately it means that I cannot assess the facts of the book properly.

The argument of the writer is that a dangerous shift took place in the Ottoman Empire and its policy changed to a Turkish nationalism. To these Turkish nationalist the existence of the Armenians in Turkish areas was a threat to this state so from about 1915 to the early 1920's they created a planned genocide of the Armenians.

After reading the book which I found tedious in parts, I am not convinced that he has proved his argument that a genocide took place.

Genocide surprisingly is a difficult case to prove. Partly because fortunately we have few examples as they are not that common. However also because the evidence is suppressed and denied for example during WW2, the Nazi destroyed the evidence while they did it and after almost all senior Nazis denied knowledge or responsibility for it.

What the book does show is that last scale deportations of the Armenians took place and that these did result in large-scale crimes against them which include robbery, kidnapping and a million murders. Having said this, I am not so sure it matters whether a genocide took place, clearly many people were murdered because they were Armenians.

After 1920s when they should have some justice, it was denied. It is a shame that so few people that did these robbery, kidnapping and murders were punished.

27 people found this helpful

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Geraldtonjjeeper

Genocide, hidden and denied!

Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2014

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Under the cover of WWI the Turkish (Ottoman) government set about deliberately wiping the Armenian people from the face of the earth! With careful planning they were able to kill about 2,000,000 Armenians.....primarily in a religious pogrom......but also under the guise of resisting an insurgency, a fight for independence for a people who had been subject to repression for several hundred years, not only by the Turks but by countless other nations over millenia. Living as they do at the meeting of Asia and Europe they had been trampled by invaders since the days of the Persian Empire!
As the Ottoman Empire crumbled, losing the Balkan states, then the north African part of their empire the Turks felt threatened when the Armenians started agitating for independence. Using "Turkish" identity as an excuse, they very nearly wiped Armenia and it's population from the map!
This is another story of how nationalism, patriotism and religion can be used to justify the demonisation and objectification of a whole population and allow one group of people to attempt to wipe out another.
This has happened throughout history, but so many times in just the 20th Century!

Will we never learn?

12 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

annieo

A historically important book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 16, 2013

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This book is a must read for anyone with an interest in ethnic conflict and the events leading to genocide. The words 'never again' have been spoken after many genocides; time has proven that again and again we fail to learn lessons from history. Refusing to acknowledge a genocide even happened further paves the way for more crimes against humanity. This book explains in a scholarly but readable manner the unique set of circumstances that paved the way to a genocide of one and a half million people, and perhaps gives some insight into why modern day Turkey still refuses to acknowledge the event. A dense book, but very well researched and a story skilfully told. Highly recommended.

9 people found this helpful

iscqpk

A moving Book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 9, 2019

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A moving book. Shame on denying Turks to what they have done to Armenians, and still continue with their policies, with Kurds, and the rest of Turkish Population.

Wissam

Very detailed and compelling.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 3, 2017

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Very detailed and compelling. I've often heard the discussion as to whether it was a massacre or genocide, Taner's use of Turkish sources shows it clearly was genocide. Shame the country refuses to officially acknowledge this as it's a refusal to learn from history.

4 people found this helpful

lrw

Good service

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 24, 2018

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A disaster well told.

One person found this helpful

Anton Ralph

Good book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 22, 2021

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More than happy with this book. A very important matter that needs to be highlighted. In really good condition. Highly recommended seller

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