Ferguson needs to go back to 8th grade to learn what he tries to teach about recent Turkish history. If not lack of knowledge he either lies or he is a paid puppet of Greco-Armenian capital. Fifteen minutes would be enough to prove him wrong about all of his mispresented garbage regarding so called ‘Armenian Genocide’ Greek expulsion, Izmir fire, population exchange etc. I am horrified about your channel’s irresponsible broadcasting and possible ill effects on young Americans.I protest Ferguson and believe that you can only make fair broadcasting by granting right to respond to a Turkish historian at the same channel. The seeds of hatred that is costructed by lies will only serve to increased bitterness between peoples and prepare ground for future hostilities.

john ruskin wrote, “planning for the future without a sense of history is like planting cut flowers.”

The Armenian genocide was a genocide. It was the wholesale slaughter of a group of people. Armenians had been victims of Ottoman violence before WWI and had been discriminated against and oppressed throughout the 1800s. It is no surprise, then, that Armenian soldiers were not the most reliable for the Ottomans. The Ottomans used the pretext of treasonous acts of Armenian soldiers to murder a large chunk of the Armenian population. We don’t need a “Turkish” historian to give “their” side of the story. The fact that a poster above me thinks we do proves Niall Ferguson’s point about the tribalism of the 20th century. We need historians who know what happened, not so-called scholars who let petty tribal loyalties cloud their professional judgment.

This series is like a whack on the side of the head–lively, fascinating, and challenging. How lucky for me, with a newish interest in history, that I came across this vivid and thorough re-examination–and for anyone struggling to understand current world events. THANK YOU!

The fact that most if not all Turks deny there was an attempted genocide of Armenians suggests to me that whatever “evidence” exists is inconclusive or indecisive. Surely if there existed solid documentary evidence there’d be no denials. Can anyone recommend any literature on the subject from either side of the issue?

Just watched the interview above, the most intelligent thing said, was Charlie Rose at the end.

Source: Wikipedia (key word “Armenian Genocide”

“The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց Ցեղասպանութիւն, Turkish: Ermeni Soykırımı), also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, the Great Calamity (Մեծ Եղեռն)—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction (genocide) of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterised by the use of massacres, and the use of deportations involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of Armenian deaths generally held to have been between one and one-and-a-half million. Other ethnic groups were similarly attacked by the Empire during this period, including Assyrians and Greeks, and some scholars consider the events to be part of the same policy of extermination.[1]

It is widely acknowledged to have been one of the first modern, systematic genocides,[2][3] as many Western sources point to the sheer scale of the death toll as evidence for a systematic, organized plan to eliminate the Armenians.[4]

The date of the onset of the genocide is conventionally held to be April 24, 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were indiscriminate of age or gender, with rape and other sexual abuse commonplace. The Armenian Genocide is the second most-studied case of genocide.[5]

The Republic of Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, does not accept the word genocide as an accurate description of the events.[6] In recent years, it has faced repeated calls to accept the events as genocide. To date, twenty-one countries have officially recognized the events of the period as genocide, and most scholars[7] and historians[8] accept this view.[9][10] The majority of Armenian diaspora communities were founded as a result of the Armenian genocide.”

Most of you people need to get over your own biased beliefs and try learning some history. Considering only 12% of the Turkish people have a favorbale opinion of America, it’s understandible for all you Turkish commentors to deny Ferguson’s critic. What’s more demonstrable is the idiot “Preston” who thinks this guy is a an “extreme liberal” because of the Educational Institutions he attended, which means that Bush must also be the same, considering he attended Harvard also. By the way, what the hell is a conservative moron like yourself doing watching public television? You don’t learn anyting from it and detest anyone who challenges your view of history. Go back to your propaganda station, (FOX), and entertain yourself with more “American Idol”!

http://homepages.cae.wisc.edu/~dwilson/Armenia/mccarthy.html

Better source than wikipedia don’t you think?

correction for Mr Matson
It is not true that “12% of the Turkish people have a favorbale opinion of America”12% of the Turkish people have a favorbale opinion of current middle esat politics of America. Please check the last number before the ill fated Iraqi campaign. I was in Turkey in 2006 and the attetude towards American people was unchanged and very positive.
Truth is

Is that how you do it?… LOL

I found that Mr.Ferguson contributed no new information, but his recognition of Communism as being equally as “evil” as National Socialism was at least better than the usual “progressive” presentation of the Soviet International Socialism as being acceptable as it was anti-fascist. But Ferguson’s always placing himself front-and-center as he presented his non-news was both irritating and pompous.

Actually Mr. Martin everybody knows that Communism is evil just like the Nazis. But at the time of the war they didn’t pose as much of a threat, especially when they started fighting the Nazis. Should we have attacked them after the war?, like General Patton suggested? Well I think everybody was pretty much tired of war by that point, especially the soldiers… But that’s not to say one can’t make a career thinking about it.