Events

« Wednesday September 23, 2009 »
Wed
Start: 7:30 pm
End: 8:30 pm
Children of Armenia: A Forgotten Genocide and the Century-Long Struggle for Justice (Simon & Schuster) From 1915 to 1923, the ruling Ottoman Empire drove 2 million Armenians from their ancestral homeland, during which 1.5 million of them were viciously slaughtered. While there was an initial global outcry and a movement led by Woodrow Wilson to aid the "starving Armenians," the promise to hold the perpetrators accountable was never fulfilled and a curtain of silence soon descended on one of the worst crimes of modern history. Now, almost a century later, the Armenians are still fighting for justice. After uncovering his family's experiences during the Genocide, Michael Bobelian struggled to rationalize how an event as widely reported as the Genocide--more than a hundred articles ran in The New York Times in 1915, with a typical headline exclaiming "Wholesale Massacres of Armenians by Turks"--could fade from public consciousness. Why was the Genocide ignored, forgotten, and, worse, relegated to fiction for so long? What role did America’s national self-interest play in helping Turkey evade public accountability? Why did Armenians themselves initially stand silent? Based on years of archival research and personal interviews, Children of Armenia is the first book to trace this post-Genocide history and reveal the events that have conspired to eradicate the "hidden holocaust" from the world's memory. Michael Bobelian, a graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, is a lawyer, journalist, and grandson of Genocide survivors. His work has appeared in Forbes.com, American Lawyer, and Legal Affairs magazine and has been featured on NPR's Leonard Lopate show. He resides in New York City with his wife and daughter.
Syndicate content