"The abundant American diplomatic and journalistic record of the 1915 Armenian Genocide has overshadowed the accounts of the 1894–1896 massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. This compilation of published reports from that era remind us of the extent of those precursor atrocities and the public indignation registered in the United States. Arman Kirakossian, who has assiduously prepared this compilation, persuasively traces American interest in the Armenian Question and in the fate and treatment of the Christian Armenians to these critical years at the end of the nineteenth century. This is an important contribution to the growing scholarly appreciation and documentation of the long, but little studied, history of relations between the American and Armenian peoples based on the principle of values and humanitarian concern."—Rouben Paul Adalian, Director of the Armenian National Institute
"Ambassador Kirakossian has done the field of Armenian studies (and the study of the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East more broadly) a great service by compiling articles from the American press of the 1890s dealing with the then-vital Armenian Question. The sad record of Ottoman government over their Armenian subjects was of great concern to American diplomats, missionaries, and journalists, and here the views of leading public intellectuals of the day illuminate both the tragic and heroic sides of Armenian life in the years before the Genocide."—Ronald Grigor Suny, Professor of Political Science and History, University of Chicago
"Unlike collections of cursory newspaper accounts, this illuminating volume brings together substantial and mostly analytical articles culled from American periodicals of the 1890s. The reader will hear the compassionate voices of solicitous American public figures protesting against the premeditated massacres of the mid-1890s in the Ottoman Empire, a cold-blooded policy which was a little later to be adopted by the Young Turks in its most radical and brutal form. These writings at the time echoed and in large measure shaped American public opinion, which demanded effective action to stop Abdulhamid's murderous anti-Armenian policy, but was faced with disappointing inaction on the part of the architects of American foreign policy on the Middle East. Dr. Kirakossian's incisive introduction and meticulous annotation place these writings in their proper context and help the reader understand these at times passionate views, expressed by indignant public figures, who were appalled by the indiscriminate and ruthless nature of the Armenian massacres of the 1890s."—Kevork B. Bardakjian, Marie Manoogian Professor of Armenian Language and Literature, University of Michigan
