In “The Emergence of Modern Turkey” (1962), British historian Bernard Lewis wrote that Turkey had killed 1.5 million Armenians in 1915. However, in his revised (2002) version of the book, he replaced Armenian “holocaust” with “slaughter” and changed the 1.5 million to “according to estimates, more than a million,” and a concluding remark that an “unknown number of Turks who also died in the putative struggle for possession of a single homeland.” What changed between 1962 and 2002? Lewis entered politics and decided to take sides for economic, professional, and personal reasons. The historian’s interests lay with the Turkish government, not historic truth.

In “The Emergence of Modern Turkey” (1962), British historian Bernard Lewis wrote that Turkey had killed 1.5 million Armenians in 1915. However, in his revised (2002) version of the book, he replaced Armenian “holocaust” with “slaughter” and changed the 1.5 million to “according to estimates, more than a million,” and a concluding remark that an “unknown number of Turks who also died in the putative struggle for possession of a single homeland.” What changed between 1962 and 2002? Lewis entered politics and decided to take sides for economic, professional, and personal reasons. The historian’s interests lay with the Turkish government, not historic truth.