A landmark assessment of Turkish culpability in the Armenian genocide, the first history of its kind by a Turkish historian In 1915, under the cover of a world war, some one million Armenians were killed through starvation, forced marches, forced exile, and mass acts of slaughter. Although Armenians and world opinion have held the Ottoman powers responsible, Turkey has consistently rejected any claim of intentional genocide. Now, in a pioneering work of excavation, Turkish historian Taner Akçam has made extensive and unprecedented use of Ottoman and other sources to produce a scrupulous charge sheet against the Turkish authorities. The first scholar of any nationality to have mined the significant evidence—in Turkish military and court records, parliamentary minutes, letters, and eyewitness accounts—Akçam follows the chain of events leading up to the killing and then reconstructs its systematic orchestration by coordinated departments of the Ottoman state, the ruling political parties, and the military. He also probes the crucial question of how Turkey succeeded in evading responsibility, pointing to competing international interests in the region, the priorities of Turkish nationalists, and the international community's inadequate attempts to bring the perpetrators to justice. As Turkey lobbies to enter the European Union, Akçam's work becomes ever more important and relevant. Beyond its timeliness, A Shameful Act is sure to take its lasting place as a classic and necessary work on the subject.

A study of the Armenian genocide draws on Ottoman sources, including parliamentary minutes, letters, military and court records, and eyewitness accounts, to lay responsibility for the event on Turkish authorities, revealing a systematic orchestration of the killings by the military, ruling political parties, and the Ottoman state.

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Should laws about sex and pornography be based on social conventions about what is disgusting? Should felons be required to display bumper stickers or wear T-shirts that announce their crimes? This powerful and elegantly written book, by one of America's most influential philosophers, presents a critique of the role that shame and disgust play in our individual and social lives and, in particular, in the law. Martha Nussbaum argues that we should be wary of these emotions because they are associated in troubling ways with a desire to hide from our humanity, embodying an unrealistic and sometimes pathological wish to be invulnerable. Nussbaum argues that the thought-content of disgust embodies "magical ideas of contamination, and impossible aspirations to purity that are just not in line with human life as we know it." She argues that disgust should never be the basis for criminalizing an act, or play either the aggravating or the mitigating role in criminal law it currently does. She writes that we should be similarly suspicious of what she calls "primitive shame," a shame "at the very fact of human imperfection," and she is harshly critical of the role that such shame plays in certain punishments. Drawing on an extraordinarily rich variety of philosophical, psychological, and historical references--from Aristotle and Freud to Nazi ideas about purity--and on legal examples as diverse as the trials of Oscar Wilde and the Martha Stewart insider trading case, this is a major work of legal and moral philosophy.

Conquer your self-defeating beliefs and create a more fulfilling life! Do you feel like you’re broken? Are you depressed because you believe that you’re somehow defective, unwanted, or inferior? Do you feel self-conscious and insecure, constantly comparing yourself to others? Are you sensitive to criticism, or terrified of rejection? Feeling flawed and inadequate often stems from negative childhood experiences. If you grew up in a highly critical environment, you might feel unworthy of being loved, or have a deep sense of shame about your perceived defects. You may tell yourself there is something inherently wrong with you that prevents you from forming satisfying relationships, finding happiness, and succeeding in life. So, how can free yourself from the self-defeating beliefs that keep you trapped in the depths of depression? Grounded in evidence-based acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), this workbook will give you the tools to identify and dismiss your core beliefs of personal defectiveness, and build a life based on positive choices and values that bring vitality and a sense of personal fulfillment. You’ll discover ways to develop psychological flexibility, freeing yourself from old habits and unhealthy coping mechanisms, and alleviating symptoms of depression. Finally, you’ll learn to see yourself in all your wonderful complexity, with kindness and compassion. The truth is you are not broken, and painful memories of the past do not have to dictate your future. If you’re ready to heal and treat yourself to the care and compassion you deserve, this book will show you how.

An unprecedented look at secret documents showing the deliberate nature of the Armenian genocide Introducing new evidence from more than 600 secret Ottoman documents, this book demonstrates in unprecedented detail that the Armenian Genocide and the expulsion of Greeks from the late Ottoman Empire resulted from an official effort to rid the empire of its Christian subjects. Presenting these previously inaccessible documents along with expert context and analysis, Taner Akçam's most authoritative work to date goes deep inside the bureaucratic machinery of Ottoman Turkey to show how a dying empire embraced genocide and ethnic cleansing. Although the deportation and killing of Armenians was internationally condemned in 1915 as a "crime against humanity and civilization," the Ottoman government initiated a policy of denial that is still maintained by the Turkish Republic. The case for Turkey's "official history" rests on documents from the Ottoman imperial archives, to which access has been heavily restricted until recently. It is this very source that Akçam now uses to overturn the official narrative. The documents presented here attest to a late-Ottoman policy of Turkification, the goal of which was no less than the radical demographic transformation of Anatolia. To that end, about one-third of Anatolia's 15 million people were displaced, deported, expelled, or massacred, destroying the ethno-religious diversity of an ancient cultural crossroads of East and West, and paving the way for the Turkish Republic. By uncovering the central roles played by demographic engineering and assimilation in the Armenian Genocide, this book will fundamentally change how this crime is understood and show that physical destruction is not the only aspect of the genocidal process.

Despite the wide use of shame in the media and politics, through 'name and shame' campaigns and cause-related marketing, it is not a term well or universally understood. This book points to ways in which we can and should use this powerful emotion to address and act against atrocities in the modern world.