Product Details

Publishers Weekly

Combining a compelling oral history with a trenchant analysis of the first major genocide of the 20th century, this moving study focuses on the Turkish murder of more than one million Armenians between 1915 and 1923 in a systematic campaign of mass deportations, slaughter, forced labor and starvation. The Millers, a husband-and-wife team--he is a sociologist of religion at the University of Southern California, she is the daughter of survivors of the genocide--present formidable documentary evidence that this holocaust was the result of an ultranationalist Turkish government's deliberate plan to exterminate the Armenians (still denied by Turkish officials). Their interviews with 100 survivors of the genocide are organized to illustrate specific themes such as the imprisonment and torture of Armenian leaders, life in orphanages (which cradled a new generation of Armenians) and the psychological traumas that continue to afflict survivors in nightmares and waking moments. Photos. (Apr.)

Library Journal

The Armenian genocide of 1915 is one of the few systematic atrocities of the 20th century that has yet to be fully acknowledged. Committed in a remote corner of the world during World War I, it has been regularly denied by successive Turkish governments and never truly mourned by the world community. In this book, Donald Miller (religion, Univ. of Southern California) and Lorna Miller, whose parents survived the massacre, recall the event in a painfully moving and objective testament to all those who suffered and died. Their work is impressive in its scope and methodology; over 100 elderly survivors were interviewed. Balanced and objective throughout, the book attempts to deal succinctly with survivor reactions over time and offers poignant reflections on the birth of the new Armenian republic in the wake of the Soviet collapse. An excellent work; recommended for all libraries.-- Joseph W. Constance Jr., St. Anselm Coll. Lib., Manchester, N.H.