WASHINGTON — The Armenian National Institute (ANI) announced the release by the University of Toronto Press of a new edition of Centuries of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts. Extensively updated, the publication, which has been in print for the past 30 years, has been a leading college textbook on the subject of genocide and human rights.
The new edition, overseen by Samuel Totten, professor emeritus of education at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, includes 15 chapters on genocide ranging from California’s Yana Indians, the Soviet man-made famine in Ukraine, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Iraqi Kurdistan, Rwanda, to Darfur, and more.
Besides the introduction, Totten also contributes a chapter on the ISIS genocide of the Yazidis. A chapter on the Armenian Genocide, authored by ANI Director Dr. Rouben Adalian, has been included in every edition of the publication. The contextualization of the Armenian experience in relation to all the other significant examples of crimes against humanity gives a special depth to the significance of that historic catastrophe.
The essays in Centuries of Genocide are supplemented by accounts which provide vivid eyewitness testimony about each specific instance of genocide. The chapter on the Armenian Genocide is augmented with the testimony of four survivors: Helen Tatarian of Dertyol, Sarkis Agojian of Chemeshgadsak, Takhouhi Levonian of Keghi, and Yevnig Adrouni of Hoghe.
“When it comes to concise and insightful overviews, several chapters in Centuries of Genocide are as good as any, and Dr. Adalian’s chapter on the Armenian Genocide is a prime example. This is why time and again, I have included earlier editions of the book among required and suggested readings in my teaching,” said Dr. Khatchig Mouradian, Lecturer in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University.
Originally issued under the editorship of William Parsons, Israel Charny and Samuel Totten, earlier editions of Centuries of Genocide were released by Routledge, a publishing firm that specializes in professional and academic books.
