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es, a sort of natural evolution of confl icts. The genocideof the Armenians was the result of a cycle of escalationbetween a destabilizing nationalism and the defenseconcerns of the state.59Shaw, Stanford J. , and Ezel Kural Shaw. History ofthe Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol. 1,Empire of the Gazis: The Rise and Decline of theOttoman Empire 1280-1808, vol. 2, Reform, Revolution,and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey 1808-1975. Cambridge, New York, London and Melbourne:Cambridge University Press 1976, 1977. LC 76-9179.See vol. 2, pp. 314-317.The Shaw volumes were the first works publishedby otherwise legitimate scholars, employed at theuniversity level, to engage in the most brazen form ofdenial. In earlier works on Turkey, American academicshad preferred to overlook the subject of the Armeniangenocide. The Shaws chose to accept the availabledenial theses without any attempt to examine contraveningevidence. The Shaws couched the entire episodeof genocide through the use of euphemisms such as"evacuation""and "transportation. They also minimizedthe casualties by estimating that about 400, 000 Armenianswere moved, of whom about half perished. Theyalso claimed to have examined "the secret records ofthe Ottoman cabinet" and found no evidence that thecentral government had issued any orders to massacreArmenians. The Shaws elaborated the provocationthesis by characterizing the Armenians as murderousrevolutionaries, saboteurs, and collaborators with theenemy. To make them appear a consequence of war,the events of 1915 were described within the story ofthe Ottoman campaigns on the eastern front.~ 5. 10 *McCarthy, Justin. Muslims and Minorities: ThePopulation of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of theEmpire. New York and London: New York UniversityPress, 1983. LC 83-13165. ISBN 0-8147-5390-6. Seepp. 47-81, 117-130.Basing his work on the various types of censusregisters kept by the Ottomans, McCarthy reconstructsthe ethnic composition of Anatolia in the first part ofthe twentieth century. Entirely dismissing the deportationsas a deliberate and comprehensive state policyto alter the demography of the region, McCarthy resortsto the civil war thesis where for "both sides, the warbecame one of extermination in which the villages of"the other side were annihilated. (p. 119) The disappearanceof the Armenians is explained by the fact that theyconstituted no more than forty percent of the totalpopulation in any one province. The argument alsoposits the theory of Armenian self-induced or self-inflicted genocide. The question of the organizedkillings of Armenians is entirely bypassed. Epidemicswere the cause of a large number of deaths.~ 5. 11 *Sonyel, Salahi R. "Armenian Deportations: A Reappraisalin the Light of New Documents. " Belleten 36,no. 141 (1972): 51-69.A claim regularly made by rationalizers has beentheir continuingdiscoveryof archival documents whichbelie the genocide. Relying on British documents,Sonyel advances the disingenuous idea that, despite thedocuments demonstrating a willful plan of deportation,the Ottoman government cannot be "implicated in themassacres. " Sonyel concocts one of the strangestcombinations of argument: the partial admission of facts(i. e. , the deportations) and the absolution of theOttoman goverment for the consequences of theirmethods of implementing this policy. "Owing to theshortage of men, most of whom were fighting on thevarious fronts against the external enemies, the Ottomangovernment entrusted the guarding of the convoys ofArmenians, who were being deported, to non-combatants,usually to convicts released from prisons for thepurpose, and to local Kurds, who had old scores tosettle with the Armenians. The deportations gave theKurds the opportunity to deal severely with the Armenianswho had already lost the favour of the OttomanGovernment owing to their treachery. There is noevidence that the Ottoman Government planned themassacres, although deportations were well-plannedin order to be effective enough to diminish the greatdanger of a general Armenian uprising. " (p. 60-61)Sonyel's article also contains a particularly goodexample of a euphemism. "The whole affair [understandgenocide) was spontaneous and the result of"extreme provocation on the part of the Armenians.(p. 61) Like all rational izers, Sonyel finds no contradictionbetween the claim that the Armenian populationwas in a state of rebellion and yet the deporationsproceeded expeditiously, with little resistance, andaccording to plan.* 5. 12 *Uras, Esat. The Armenians in History and the ArmenianQuestion. Istanbul: Foundation for the Establishmentand Promotion of Centers for Historical Research andDocumentation, and Istanbul Research Center, 1988.This massive tome running into a thousand pagesis the prototype of revisionist historiography on theArmenians produced in Turkey. The translation of awork first published in 1950 in Turkish, the Urasvolume is in the main a collection of documents andlengthy quotations strung together with the sketchiestof background information. It leaves the impression98 GENOCIDE