2015 marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Ottoman government’s systematic annihilation of its Armenian population. This state violence came to be characterized as ‘genocide’ when the term was coined several decades later, and the Armenian experience was used as a justification for the need for such a term.
Both the event itself, as well as the ways in which it is depicted and named, are the topic of many conferences, books, exhibits and other events around the world this year. Among them, there is the just- published book, GREAT CATASTROPHE: ARMENIANS AND TURKS IN THE SHADOW OF GENOCIDE. The author, Tom de Waal, was the guest of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies at a lunchtime conversation held on February 23, 2015 at the USC Ground Zero Coffeehouse.
