"In 2021, as we witness the denial of racism, life-threatening viruses, and systemic violence, Savelsberg’s analysis of the epistemic debates surrounding the Armenian Genocide shows us a pathway forward where social actors mobilize against those in power to create new public repertoires of knowledge."
—Social Forces
"Knowing about Genocide impressively manages to pin down the sociology of Armenian genocide knowledge while simultaneously overflowing its specificity. . . . The book is best suited for students or scholars in the fields of memory studies, sociology, genocide studies, anthropology, and history who seek to contextualize the ways in which memory of the past is processed and honed in service of contemporary ethnic and national interests."
—Past Tense Graduate Review of History
"In Knowing about Genocide: Armenian Suffering and Epistemic Struggles, Joachim J. Savelsberg presents several innovative sociological approaches for understanding the aftermath of an event that occurred over 100 years ago—the Armenian Genocide of 1915. . . .Knowing about Genocide arrives at a critical moment when Armenians continue to grapple with how to survive a repeated silencing and denial of their trauma."—Contemporary Sociology
"Knowing About Genocide: Armenian Suffering and Epistemic Struggles helps readers make sense of…complexity. . . .enormously relevant for these times."—State Crime Journal
"Empirically robust. . . .Savelsberg has initiated what should become a very powerful line of research."—Law & Social Inquiry
"Knowing About Genocide is a smart, well-researched, and eloquently written study in the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of memory."—International Journal of Comparative Sociology
"This pioneering sociology of knowledge of the Armenian genocide is critical for understanding the background to Turkish denial as the final stage of genocide. Savelsberg’s epistemic study is a warning against a revived shade of an Orwellian order, with its 'alternative realities' and 'post-truths.'"—Dr. Claire Mouradian, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris
"Knowledge denial is a deadly phenomenon and an urgent problem. Confronting the Armenian genocide, Joachim Savelsberg illuminates how mass harm has been negated or acknowledged, through painstaking research, unrivaled expertise, and ethical commitment."—Lois Presser, author of Inside Story: How Narratives Drive Mass Harm
"Savelsberg has done a brilliant job in this very unique work that for the first time analyzes the Armenian genocide from the vantage point of knowledge construction. He aptly brings in the standpoints of Armenians and Turks on the one side and analyzes the layering of knowledge through interaction to sedimentation and finally to rituals. A must-read for all interested in collective violence, social movements, and sociology of knowledge."—Fatma Müge Göçek, author of Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence against the Armenians, 1789–2009
