Merril D. Peterson
In “Starving Armenians,” historian Merrill Peterson explores the American response to the Armenian Genocide, beginning with the initial reports to President Woodrow Wilson by the U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau Sr. Public outrage led to an unprecedented crusade spearheaded by Near East Relief. The book also addresses the Armenian aspirations for an independent republic under American auspices.
Part of a generation who were admonished as children to “remember the starving Armenians,” Peterson went to Armenia in 1997 as a Peace Corps volunteer and became fascinated by its troubled history. The extensive research he embarked upon afterward revealed not only the scope of Armenian amazing resilience, but located in the American effort to help the Armenians a unique perspective on the U.S. experience of the twentieth century.
