The Resistance Network is the history of an underground network of humanitarians, missionaries, and diplomats in Ottoman Syria who helped save the lives of thousands during the Armenian Genocide. The book challenges depictions of Armenians as passive victims of violence and subjects of humanitarianism, demonstrating the key role they played in organizing a humanitarian resistance against the destruction of their people. Piecing together hundreds of accounts, official documents, and missionary records, Mouradian presents a social history of genocide and resistance in wartime Aleppo and a network of transit and concentration camps stretching from Bab to Ras ul-Ain and Der Zor. He ultimately argues that, despite the violent and systematic mechanisms of control and destruction in the cities, concentration camps, and massacre sites in this region, the genocide of the Armenians did not progress unhindered—unarmed resistance proved an important factor in saving countless lives.

Khatchig Mouradian is a lecturer in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies at Columbia University, and the editor of the peer-reviewed journal The Armenian Review. In 2020, Dr. Mouradian was awarded a Humanities War & Peace Initiative Grant from Columbia University.

The Resistance Network: The Armenian Genocide and Humanitarianism in Ottoman Syria, 1915-1918 is available at msupress.org and other fine booksellers. Khatchig is on Twitter @khatcho and he’s also available on Facebook and Instagram. You can connect with the press on Facebook and @msupress on Twitter, where you can also find me @kurtmilb.

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