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The United States and the Armenian Genocide: History, Memory, Politics (Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights )

The United States and the Armenian Genocide: History, Memory, Politics (Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights )

Julien Zarifian
$187.50
Publication Date: May 17th, 2024
Publisher:
Rutgers University Press
ISBN:
9781978837935
Pages:
324
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Description

During the first World War, over a million Armenians were killed as Ottoman Turks embarked on a bloody campaign of ethnic cleansing. Scholars have long described these massacres as genocide, one of Hitler’s prime inspirations for the Holocaust, yet the United States did not officially recognize the Armenian Genocide until 2021. 
 
This is the first book to examine how and why the United States refused to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide until the early 2020s. Although the American government expressed sympathy towards the plight of the Armenians in the 1910s and 1920s, historian Julien Zarifian explores how, from the 1960s, a set of geopolitical and institutional factors soon led the United States to adopt a policy of genocide non-recognition which it would cling to for over fifty years, through Republican and Democratic administrations alike. He describes the forces on each side of this issue: activists from the US Armenian diaspora and their allies, challenging Cold War statesmen worried about alienating NATO ally Turkey and dealing with a widespread American reluctance to directly confront the horrors of the past. Drawing from congressional records, rare newspapers, and interviews with lobbyists and decision-makers, he reveals how genocide recognition became such a complex, politically sensitive issue. 

About the Author

JULIEN ZARIFIAN is Professor in U.S. History and Civilization at the University of Poitiers, France, and fellow at the Institut Universitaire de France. He is the author of two books in French and has published dozens of academic articles in journals such as Society and European Journal of American Studies.
 

Praise for The United States and the Armenian Genocide: History, Memory, Politics (Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights )

"Julien Zarifian's study sheds light on much more than the question of the Armenian Genocide: it sheds light on an American political class and a federal administration that have long been susceptible to outside pressure from pro-Turkish lobbies, revealing a political culture that is relatively untouched by ethical questions. The author's methodical dismantling of this process is an essential tool for understanding the inner workings of the American state."
— Raymond H. Kévorkian

"Julien Zarifian has produced a masterful account of the domestic and international “politicking” that led to the decades-long delay in America’s recognizing as genocide the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, perpetrated during the era of the First World War. His skillful assessment of the cross-cutting pressures that were brought to bear upon Washington decisionmakers from both foreign and domestic sources establishes The United States and the Armenian Genocide as the definitive work on the topic.”
— David G. Haglund

"In this exceptional book, Julien Zarifian has given us the first thorough account of the process that led from a reluctance to antagonize the denialist Turkish government to the extraordinary decision of the Biden administration to acknowledge the tragedy that befell Armenians as genocide. As a study of diplomacy and public activity, this work elevates our understanding of how governments and ordinary people complexly intersect in the making of foreign policy."
— Ronald Grigor Suny

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