A collected volume featuring the work of Armenian, Turkish, and other scholars, this book presents the story of the Armenian Genocide coolly and objectively, exploring how and why the Young Turk government ordered and carried out the mass deportations and massacres of its Christian subjects.

Preface- Norman M. Naimark ; Introduction: Leaving It to the Historians-Ronald Grigor Suny and Fatma Muge Gocek ; Part I Historiographies of the Genocide ; Ch 1. Writing Genocide: The Fate of the Ottoman Armenians in Western Historiographies- Ronald Grigor Suny ; Ch 2. Reading Genocide: Turkish Historiography on the Armenian Ethnic Cleansing- Fatma Muge Gocek ; Part II On the Eve of Catastrophe ; Ch3. The Silence of the Land: Agrarian Relations, Ethnicity, and Power- Stephan H. Astourian ; Ch 4. What was Revolutionary about Armenian Political Parties in the Ottoman Empire?- Gerald J. Libaridian ; Ch 5. Non-Muslims in the Ottoman Army and the Ottoman Defeat in the Balkan War of 1912-1913- Fikret Adanir ; Ch 6. From Patriotism to Mass Murder: Dr. Mehmed Reshid (1873-1919)- Hans-Lukas Kieser ; Part III Genocide in International Context ; Ch 7. The Politics and Practice of the Russian Occupation of Armenia, 1915-February 1917- Peter Holquist ; Ch 8. Germany and the Young Turks: Revolutionaries into Statesmen- Eric D. Weitz ; Ch 9. Who Still Talked about the Extermination of the Armenians? German Talk and German Silences- Margaret Lavinia Anderson ; Part IV Genocide in Local Context ; Ch 10. Zeytun and the Commencement of the Armenian Genocide- Aram Arkun ; Ch 11. The Ottoman Treatment of the Assyrians- David Gaunt ; Ch 12. The First World War and the Development of the Armenian Genocide- Donald Bloxham ; Ch 13. Pouring a People into the Desert: The "Definitive Solution" of the Unionists to the Armenian Question- Fuat Dundar ; Part V Continuties ; Ch 14. "Turkey for the Turks": Demographic Engineering in Eastern Anatolia, 1914-1945- Ugur Umit Ungor ; Ch 15. Renewal and Silence: Unionist Policies After World War I- Erik Jan Zurcher

"The positive effects of comparative history are evident throughout this collection of essays. It is not only the sophistication of Holocaust history on which these authors have drawn, but the large body of scholarship on post-1945 genocidal events as well."--Slavic Review "Provides invaluable analytical perspectives on the Armenian Genocide that educators may use to help students gain a more complete understanding. The volume's careful attention to the complexity of identity construction in the Ottoman Empire contributes important nuance to the Armenian Genocide narrative, highlighting dynamics that transcend Turkish-Armenian relations within the empire."--World History Connected "The book as a whole is indeed something much larger than the sum of its parts...This volume presents new and important research that will make it required reading for any scholar in the field or on any course syllabus on the topic."--The Historian "As a scholarly addition to the understanding of the Armenian genocide, the late Ottoman Empire, and the beginning of the Turkish Republic--A Question of Genocide succeeds."--H-Net "Nearly a century on from the attempted Ottoman destruction of the Armenians, Turkish politics of denial, on the one hand, and an Armenian mythic representation of a singular Turkish guilt, on the other, have repeatedly sabotaged chances for dialogue. Yet in this book a group of leading historians from both sides of the divide, and beyond, demonstrate that the reality of genocide can be examined in its multi-causal dimensions not only without partisanship but in recognition of a shared history. A Question of Genocide can be read as a breakthrough historical study providing a contextualized, nuanced yet sensitive set of interpretations of an Armenian--but also wider Ottoman--tragedy. Equally, however, it may come to be remembered as a timely intervention on the path to reconciliation between post-Ottoman peoples."--Mark Levene, University of Southampton "Although the Armenian genocide is probably the clearest case of that crime apart from the Holocaust, for political reasons it has been one of the more controversial. A Question of Genocide offers valuable new studies of this very important topic, written by some of the leading experts in the field, including both Armenian and Turkish scholars. It carries on the work of the courageous Turkish Armenian writer Hrant Dink, who was assassinated in Istanbul in 2007."-Ben Kiernan, author of Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur

Selling point: Perennially controversial subject, given the official state-sponsored campaign to deny what happened. Selling point: Features Turkish and Armenian scholars together in a single volume. Selling point: Multinational cast of contributors draws on international archives and documents in a range of languages.

Ronald Grigor Suny is the Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Social and Political History and Director of the Eisenberg Institute of Historical Studies at the University of Michigan. Fatma Müge Göçek is Associate Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan. Norman M. Naimark is the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies and Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Selling point: Perennially controversial subject, given the official state-sponsored campaign to deny what happened. Selling point: Features Turkish and Armenian scholars together in a single volume. Selling point: Multinational cast of contributors draws on international archives and documents in a range of languages.