Preface ix
Guide to Ottoman Turkish Words and Names xxxvii
Abbreviations xxxix
CHAPTER ONE Ottoman Sources and the Question of Their Being Purged 1
CHAPTER TWO: The Plan for the Homogenization of Anatolia 29
CHAPTER THREE: The Aftermath of the Balkan Wars and the"Emptying" of Eastern Thrace and the Aegean Littoral in 1913-14 63
CHAPTER FOUR: The Transformation of Ottoman Policies toward the Ottoman Greeks during the First World War 97
CHAPTER FIVE: The Initial Phase of Anti-Armenian Policy 125
CHAPTER SIX: Final Steps in the Decision-Making Process 157
CHAPTER SEVEN: Interior Ministry Documents and the Intent to Annihilate 203
CHAPTER EIGHT: Demographic Policy and the Annihilation of the Armenians 227
CHAPTER NINE: Assimilation: The Conversion and Forced Marriage of Christian Children 287
CHAPTER TEN: The Question of Confi scated Armenian Property 341
ELEVEN Some Official Denialist Arguments of the Turkish State and Documents from the Ottoman Interior Ministry 373
CHAPTER TWELVE: Toward a Conclusion 449
Selected Bibliography 453
Index 471

An unprecedented look at secret documents showing the deliberate nature of the Armenian genocide
Introducing new evidence from more than 600 secret Ottoman documents, this book demonstrates in unprecedented detail that the Armenian Genocide and the expulsion of Greeks from the late Ottoman Empire resulted from an official effort to rid the empire of its Christian subjects. Presenting these previously inaccessible documents along with expert context and analysis, Taner Akçam's most authoritative work to date goes deep inside the bureaucratic machinery of Ottoman Turkey to show how a dying empire embraced genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Although the deportation and killing of Armenians was internationally condemned in 1915 as a "crime against humanity and civilization," the Ottoman government initiated a policy of denial that is still maintained by the Turkish Republic. The case for Turkey's "official history" rests on documents from the Ottoman imperial archives, to which access has been heavily restricted until recently. It is this very source that Akçam now uses to overturn the official narrative.
The documents presented here attest to a late-Ottoman policy of Turkification, the goal of which was no less than the radical demographic transformation of Anatolia. To that end, about one-third of Anatolia's 15 million people were displaced, deported, expelled, or massacred, destroying the ethno-religious diversity of an ancient cultural crossroads of East and West, and paving the way for the Turkish Republic.
By uncovering the central roles played by demographic engineering and assimilation in the Armenian Genocide, this book will fundamentally change how this crime is understood and show that physical destruction is not the only aspect of the genocidal process.

Taner Akçam, the first scholar of Turkish origin to publicly acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, holds the Kaloosdian and Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark University. His many books include A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility (Metropolitan Books).