F. M. Gocek, Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence against the Armenians (Oxford UP, 2015)
Adolf Hitler famously (and probably) said in a speech to his military leaders \u201cWho, after all, speaks to-day of the annihilation of the Armenians?\u201d This remark is generally taken to suggest that future generations won\u2019t remember current atrocities, so there\u2019s no reason not to commit them. The implication is that memory has something like an expiration date, that it fades, somewhat inevitably, of its own accord.\n\nAt the heart of Fatma Muge Gocek\u2019s book is the claim that forgetting doesn\u2019t just happen. Rather, forgetting (and remembering) happens in a context, with profound political and personal stakes for those involved. And this forgetting has consequences.\n\nDenial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence against the Armenians 1789-2009 (Oxford University Press, 2015) looks at how this process played out in Turkey in the past 200 years. Gocek looks at both the mechanisms and the logic of forgetting. In doing so she sets the Turkish decisions to reinterpret the Armenian genocide into a longer tale of modernization and collective violence. And she illustrates the complicated ways in which remembering and forgetting collide.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies