Dr. Justin A. McCarthy is an American demographer, Ottoman Empire expert, and Balkan history expert and history professor at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky.
Justin McCarthy, is best known for his controversial views about the Armenian Genocide thesis and has written books, about the Balkans, Balkan history, the Middle East, and Ottoman Empire history.
Justin McCarthy has a Ph. D. in Ottoman history from the University of California.
Justin McCarthy has written in his books that the Armenian massacres were the result of ethnic tensions which resulted in hundreds of Turkish massacres. Justin McCarthy says that hundreds of thousands of Muslims being killed and the Armenian rebellions in Van and other cities proves that there was a great Armenian Nationalist Revolution which subsequently damaged the Ottoman war effort in 1915 and the Ottomans responded by relocating Armenians safely to the Ottoman-Syrian provinces where the rebels could not help the Allied invaders.
Justin McCarthy has faced much criticism from Armenian scholars such as Peter Balakian including accusations that he is an "agent for the Turkish government." Justin McCarthy has been the target for hate campaigns to label him as a "genocide denialist" and "revisionist". Including continuous vandalism of his wikipedia page to discredit his historical credentials.
No evidence has been provided to corroborate these accusations and they seem to be created because of propaganda and politicization of the "recognition of the Armenian Genocide" campaign which is attempting to silence debate and force public opinion to reach a conclusion of genocide on the controversial events surrounding the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Justin McCarthy's studies drove him to research the Armenian genocide allegations. ‘I have to say that until then I also believed the Armenian genocide allegations, but as I looked deeper into the issue the truth came out,’ he said frankly. ‘As my research continued, I found out that the documents of the Armenians were fake. The Turks were facing a great lie and slander.’ McCarthy came under pressure. He was threatened with losing his job if he continued his research. His family had to get police protection. This didn’t intimidate McCarthy.
PBS Armenian Genocide Debate
In PBS a documentary called the "Armenian Genocide" by Andrew Goldberg was followed by an Armenian Genocide Debate Panel between 4 scholars; Dr. McCarthy presented the Turkish position to the debate along with Dr. Omer Turan (Ottoman History professor), and Dr. Peter Balakian (Humanities and Literature professor) and Taner Akcam (Sociology Professor) presented the Armenian position.
Interviews
An interview in 2007 with Dr. Justin McCarthy has appeared on YouTube:
Interview with Dr. Justin McCarthy
Works
- The Armenian Rebellion at Van (Utah Series in Turkish and Islamic Studies) (September 2006)
- Who Are the Turks?: A Manual for Teachers (January 2003)
- The Ottoman Peoples and the End of Empire ("Historical Endings" series) (April 2001)
- The Ottoman Turks: An Introductory History to 1923 (March 1997)
- Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922 (March 1996) ISBN 0-87850-094-4
- The Population of Palestine (1990)
- Muslims and Minorities: The Population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of the Empire (December 1983) ISBN 0-8147-5390-6
- Arab World, Turkey, and the Balkans, 1878-1914 (1982)
