The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide And America's Response [Paperback]

A History of International Human Rights and Forgotten Heroes

In this national bestseller, the critically acclaimed author Peter Balakian brings us a riveting narrative of the massacres of the Armenians in the 1890s and of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. Using rarely seen archival documents and remarkable first-person accounts, Balakian presents the chilling history of how the Turkish government implemented the first modern genocide behind the cover of World War I. And in the telling, he resurrects an extraordinary lost chapter of American history.

Awarded the Raphael Lemkin Prize for the best scholarly book on genocide by the Institute for Genocide Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice/CUNY Graduate Center.

In this important book, Balakian proves adept at presenting both human horror and political tragedy.The terrible fate of the Armenians... is brilliantly described. A great service to the history of the Armenians.An eloquent account of Turkeys long campaign to rid itself of Armenians....Thoroughly convincing.Peter Balakian tells the powerful and largely unknown story of [Armenian Genocide]. This important and compelling book is long overdue.The Burning Tigris is an act of acute historical memory, of personal testimony, of prophetic witness - and of high art.A gripping treatment of the official Turkish mass murder...a masterpiece of moral history...it needs to be widely read.Balakian tells a story long ripe for the telling.... He writes with grace and power.[A] fascinating and affecting memoir.Richly imagined and carefully documented.[An] engrossing and poignant memoir.A mighty work, a slow burn of muted eloquence, dense with scholarship...compelling.