Talaat Pasha

The first English-language biography of the de facto ruler of the late Ottoman Empire and architect of the Armenian Genocide, Talaat Pasha (1874-1921), led the triumvirate that ruled the late Ottoman Empire during World War I and is arguably the father of modern Turkey. He was also the architect of the Armenian Genocide, which resulted in the systematic extermination of more than a million people, setting the stage for a century that would witness atrocities on a scale never imagined.

Here is the first biography in English of the revolutionary figure who not only prepared the way for Ataturk and the founding of the republic in 1923, but who also shaped the modern world. In this explosive book, Hans-Lukas Kieser provides a mesmerising portrait of a man who maintained power through a potent blend of the new Turkish ethno-nationalism, the political Islam of former Sultan Abdulhamid II, and a readiness to employ radical "solutions" and violence.

From Talaat's role in the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 to his exile from Turkey and assassination—a sensation in Weimar Germany—Kieser restores the Ottoman drama to the heart of world events. He shows how Talaat wielded far more power than previously realised, making him the de facto ruler of the empire. Kieser brings wartime Istanbul vividly to life as a thriving diplomatic hub and reveals how Talaat's cataclysmic actions would reverberate across the twentieth century.

In this major work of scholarship, Kieser tells the story of the brilliant and merciless politician who stood at the twilight of empire and the dawn of the age of genocide.