The History Of Armenia: From The Origins To The Present By Author’s Name

I had a hard time reading the book as they have had such a hard history. They seem to have always lived in an area of conflict between greater powers that used them as a buffer and their land as a war zone. It is well written.

This is an extensive densely written history of Armenia from Urartu to 2007. Maybe it makes me a lazy reader, but I’m not a fan of map-less history. This author clearly knows his field, perhaps justifying “the” in the title. But he fails to convey his expertise to the reader without additional help. The book sorely lacks maps of the successive eras and a glossary. A pronunciation guide and chronology would also be helpful. Without such help the first half of the book is nothing but a mediocre king list. Without pre-familiarity with names, it’s occasionally difficult to distinguish Armenian rulers from Parthians or Sassanids.

Somewhat like the history of Israel, Armenia has been a crossroads under many great powers so that it constitutes a history of Central Asia. Established around 1900 Urartu held it’s own against the Hittites and was eventually decimated by the Assyrian empire. Heredity from tribal Urartu for modern Armenians is not quite clear. After the demise of Urartu and Assyria, the book depicts Armenia under Persian Acheamian hegemony before becoming a political football between Parthians, Seleucids, Sassanids and Romans, later Byzantines and Arabs and still later Mongols and Mamluks enter the picture. Even Egypt is involved as one ruler, Artvazd II, was beheaded by Cleopatra at the behest of Marc Antony. It’s something of an effort to trace Armenian dynasties through the periods of waxing and waning degrees of independence. Payasian does an excellent job of unraveling it all in detail.

The book is very informative on social issues and economics through the ages, as well as the Armenian diaspora. Culture and language are lightly touched.
It is interesting to follow religious development in this first Christian nation. The book depicts development of the orthodox church and it’s relationship with those in political control since the fourth century. There is little information on minority religions in Armenia.

The second half of the book covers Ottoman rule and the Armenian role in WWI followed by facts and modern legacy of the Armenian massacre. In spite of Wilson’s 14 point program, the USA and allies all declined a mandate protecting Armenian independence. A republic was created briefly in 1921 before seventy years of existence as a Soviet Socialist Republican. The book ends with recent history after creation of the Second Republic in 1991. Currently, Armenian relationships are precariously balanced between Russian irredentism and NATO, with dependence on both.

A second edition, with addition of a few maps and a glossary, would get a clear five star rating.

My wife and I travel two months each year in Turkey, traveling light and cheap. We have several interests that provide a theme for our treks. One is to satisfy ourselves as to probable routes used by Xenophon. Another is to investigate the physical remains of the Armenian presence in what is now Turkey.

This is much harder than one would expect — Turkey has erased all mention of Arnmenia. In one village we expected to find an old Armenian church, only to discover that the mayor had auctioned off the land and the new owner dynamited the building. Interestingly, we did find another great example in surprisingly good condition, hidden in a canyon, covered by vegetation — its future uncertain.

We tried to find a good Armenian history in English. However, most have been a mixture of history, legend and myth — with little effort to distinguish one from the other. Instead, we have relied largely on references to Armenian history buried in other books.

This book is the first in English we have found that satisified our curiosity. The author makes an heroic struggle to stick to the facts as they are known, We have read enough other sources to appreciate the effort that went into this book. Our criticisms are few, the main being as follows.

First, the author intentionally did not include maps, referring instead to a web site with extensive maps. Once I selected and printed the necessary maps, all was well — with the advantage that the selected maps were clearer than they would likely have been if shrunk to fit the format of the book. Still, a map with all the cities mentioned would have been nice.

Second, The author’s decision not to include legend and myth, puts him at an obvious disadvantage with respect to those who consider unsubstaniated legend as equal to fact. I would have preferred that he included and identified those mythical portions of Armenian history that are commonly accepted as factual. His dilemna then, however, would have been that critics would excoriate him for denigrating their accepted myths.

Third, the author fails to identify the peoples who were ruled by Armenians, but who have identities of which they are just as proud. For example, he mentions Diyarbakir as an Armenian city; the Kurds feel just as certainly that it is an historic Kurdish town. A cultural failure of Anatolia is that each of its peoples think they are the historic “chosen ones”, with little effort (or none at all) to respect others’ beliefs and histories.

A particular strong feature of this book is its account of Armenia and Armenians since the break-up of the Soviet empire. This is the first time that I have read a comprehensible account of this period.

My wife and I have visited most of the sites mentioned in this book (Trabzon, Kars, Ani, Bitlis, Van, Diyarbakir, Ersurum, Kars and several dozen others), which gave it particular meaning to us. We are not Armenian, Turkish nor Kurdish, but have a profound respect for each of these people. I think this book is a great starting point for anyone who shares our interst in a wonderful land, with interesting and gracious people.

I wanted to get a background to Armenian history before going there, but this book is for more serious students. It is very complex and if you know nothing about Armenian history other than what is in the Bible and a bit about the tragedy of 1915 it is not the book for you. Even chapter summaries would help, or a map or timeline. Very thorough and erudite if you look at one way, over-complicated and long winded if you look at it another.

I ordered this book to add to my collection of books on Armenia as it is my heritage. As soon as my mother saw it, without even opening it she said she had to have it for her own…I ended up giving her my copy so now I need to reorder it. Happy to do so!

book does not have the photo image on the front cover, It is blank yellow book. Also I wish it had maps to reference the places in the book.

This book ambitiously chronicles Armenian (and pre-Armenian) history from at least 850 BC to present dat. Great overview of Armenian history tracing the ethnic, religious, cultural and political origins of the Armenian people. This book is clearly well researched. My only gripe is that it does not have any maps alongside the text and someone without a working knowledge of the area might get slightly disoriented. The authors reason for this ommission is that there are many great maps online which he provides links to but I like to read away from computers.