Henry Morgenthau (1856-1946) was a lawyer, businessman and United States ambassador, most famous as the American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. He has come to be identified as the most prominent American to be associated with the Armenian Genocide. He began his career as a lawyer, but he made a substantial fortune in real estate investments. His career enabled him to contribute handsomely to President Woodrow Wilson's election campaign in 1912. Wilson offered him the position of ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1913. As Ottoman authorities began the extermination campaign of the Armenians in 1914-1915, Morgenthau's desk was flooded with reports by the American consuls residing in different parts of the Empire, documenting the massacres and deportation marches that were taking place. After the war, he attended the Paris Peace Conference, as an advisor regarding Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and later worked with war-related charitable bodies. In 1919 he headed the United States government fact-finding mission to Poland resulting in the Morgenthau Report.

"Secrets of the Bosphorus" represents the memoirs of Henry Morgenthau Sr., U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916. The book covers Morgenthau's service in Turkey, from 1913 until the day of his resignation from the post. "Secrets of the Bosphorus" is a primary source regarding the Armenian Genocide, and the Greek Genocide during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. When published, the book came under criticism by two prominent American historians regarding its coverage of Germany in the weeks before the beginning of the First World War.