Heath W. Lowry
Encyclopedia
Heath Ward Lowry is the Ataturk Professor of Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies at Princeton University
. He has written several books on the history of the Ottoman Empire
and Modern Turkey
.
volunteer in a remote mountain village in western Turkey before graduating from Portland State University
(1966). In the late '60s, he was a graduate student at UCLA working with scholars Speros Vryonis
, Jr., Andreas Tietze
, Gustav von Grunebaum, and Stanford J. Shaw
, and received his PhD in 1977. He taught full-time at Bosphorus University during the 1970s and served as the Istanbul Director of the American Research Institute in Turkey. Here he worked with some of the most renowned scholars in Ottoman studies, such as Omer Lutfi Barkan, Nejat Goyunc, and Cengiz Orhonlu. Between 1979-1982 he co-directed a team of international scholars working on late Byzantine and early Ottoman historical demography, as a member of Harvard University
's Dumbarton Oaks Center
. In 1980, he co-founded The Journal of Ottoman Studies, together with Nejat Göyünç and Halil İnalcık.
In 1983, with a group of distinguished scholars, businessmen, and retired diplomats and a grant from the Turkish government, he helped establish, and became the director of, the Institute of Turkish Studies
at Georgetown University
, which provides grants to scholars working in the area of Turkish studies. During this time, he began to study contemporary Turkish politics, and taught at the U.S. State Department's National Foreign Affairs Training Center
, where his students were U.S. diplomats scheduled for assignment in Turkey.
Since 1993, Lowry has been the Ataturk Professor of Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies at Princeton University
, and served as the Director of the Program of Near Eastern Studies from July 1994 to June 1999. He currently offers seminars on early Ottoman history and undergraduate lecture courses on Ottoman history and contemporary Turkey.
, of the Political Science
department at the University of Guelph
in Ontario
, has labeled Lowry as one of the key deniers of the Armenian Genocide
. In 1985, Lowry was involved in organizing 69 academics who signed a letter expressing their opposition to U.S. official recognition of the Armenian Genocide
. The letter was then printed in the New York Times and Washington Post.
In 1990, psychologist Robert Jay Lifton
received a letter from the Turkish Ambassador to the United States, Nuzhet Kandemir, questioning his inclusion of references to the Armenian Genocide
in one of his books. The ambassador inadvertently included a draft of a letter written by professor Lowry, advising the ambassador on how to prevent mention of the Armenian Genocide in scholarly works. The incident has been mentioned in criticisms of ethics in scholarship. According to Roger W. Smith, Eric Markusen
and Robert Jay Lifton
, Lowry was also "caught ghosting" for the Turkish ambassador in Washington regarding the denial of the Armenian Genocide
.
Commenting this affair, Michael M. Gunter
concludes:
"However, how was Lowry acting in any way different from how Armenian scholars and their supporters have their long-running campaign against Turkey? When looked upon in such light, the Armenian reactions to the Lowry memorandums appear petty and hypocritical."
Also, in 1990, he concluded that Ambassador Morgenthau's Story
was a record of "crude half-truths and outright falsehoods". According to Yair Auron
, Lowry is recognized as a principal source discrediting Morgenthau, giving "impetus to the Turkish endeavor to deny the Armenian Genocide". On the other hand, Gilles Veinstein, professor of Ottoman and Turkish history at the Collège de France
considers as "rather instructive" Heath Lowry's book about Morgenthau and, after to have "checked some of the alleged differences" between Ambassador's Morgenthau's Story and Morgenthau's archives, Guenter Lewy
shares Heath Lowry's main conclusions about Morgenthau's Memoirs.
Alan Fisher, professor of History at Michigan State University, supported Heath Lowry both against the critics and for his conclusions regarding the Ambassador Morgenthau's Story.
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. He has written several books on the history of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
and Modern Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
.
Background
Lowry spent two years (1964–1966) working as a Peace CorpsPeace Corps
The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand US culture, and helping...
volunteer in a remote mountain village in western Turkey before graduating from Portland State University
Portland State University
Portland State University is a public state urban university located in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1946, it has the largest overall enrollment of any university in the state of Oregon, including undergraduate and graduate students. It is also the only public university in...
(1966). In the late '60s, he was a graduate student at UCLA working with scholars Speros Vryonis
Speros Vryonis
Speros Vryonis Jr. is an American historian of Greek descent and a specialist in Greek and Byzantine history. He is the author of a number of works on Byzantine/Greek-Turkish relations, including The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh...
, Jr., Andreas Tietze
Andreas Tietze
Andreas Tietze was a world-renowned Austrian Turcologist and one of the founders of Turkic studies in the United States...
, Gustav von Grunebaum, and Stanford J. Shaw
Stanford J. Shaw
Stanford Jay Shaw was an American historian, best known for his works on the late Ottoman Empire, Turkish Jews, and the early Turkish Republic...
, and received his PhD in 1977. He taught full-time at Bosphorus University during the 1970s and served as the Istanbul Director of the American Research Institute in Turkey. Here he worked with some of the most renowned scholars in Ottoman studies, such as Omer Lutfi Barkan, Nejat Goyunc, and Cengiz Orhonlu. Between 1979-1982 he co-directed a team of international scholars working on late Byzantine and early Ottoman historical demography, as a member of Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
's Dumbarton Oaks Center
Dumbarton Oaks
Dumbarton Oaks is the conventional name for the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, situated on a historic property in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The institution is administered by the Trustees for Harvard University. Its founders, Robert Woods Bliss and his wife...
. In 1980, he co-founded The Journal of Ottoman Studies, together with Nejat Göyünç and Halil İnalcık.
In 1983, with a group of distinguished scholars, businessmen, and retired diplomats and a grant from the Turkish government, he helped establish, and became the director of, the Institute of Turkish Studies
Institute of Turkish Studies
The Institute of Turkish Studies is a foundation based in the United States with the avowed objective of advancing Turkish studies at colleges and universities in the USA....
at Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
, which provides grants to scholars working in the area of Turkish studies. During this time, he began to study contemporary Turkish politics, and taught at the U.S. State Department's National Foreign Affairs Training Center
National Foreign Affairs Training Center
The George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center is one of several locations that house the Foreign Service Institute , the United States government's training school for members of the U.S. foreign affairs community. It is located at Arlington Hall in Arlington, Virginia.-External...
, where his students were U.S. diplomats scheduled for assignment in Turkey.
Since 1993, Lowry has been the Ataturk Professor of Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, and served as the Director of the Program of Near Eastern Studies from July 1994 to June 1999. He currently offers seminars on early Ottoman history and undergraduate lecture courses on Ottoman history and contemporary Turkey.
Views and critics
David B. MacDonaldDavid B. MacDonald
David Bruce MacDonald has an international reputation in the academic fields of Comparative Indigenous Politics, US politics, International Relations, nationalism studies, genocide and human rights. Born in Leeds, UK in 1973, he was raised in Canada, and is currently Associate Professor in...
, of the Political Science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
department at the University of Guelph
University of Guelph
The University of Guelph, also known as U of G, is a comprehensive public research university in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1964 after the amalgamation of Ontario Agricultural College, the Macdonald Institute, and the Ontario Veterinary College...
in Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, has labeled Lowry as one of the key deniers of the Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...
. In 1985, Lowry was involved in organizing 69 academics who signed a letter expressing their opposition to U.S. official recognition of the Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...
. The letter was then printed in the New York Times and Washington Post.
In 1990, psychologist Robert Jay Lifton
Robert Jay Lifton
Robert Jay Lifton is an American psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of war and political violence and for his theory of thought reform...
received a letter from the Turkish Ambassador to the United States, Nuzhet Kandemir, questioning his inclusion of references to the Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...
in one of his books. The ambassador inadvertently included a draft of a letter written by professor Lowry, advising the ambassador on how to prevent mention of the Armenian Genocide in scholarly works. The incident has been mentioned in criticisms of ethics in scholarship. According to Roger W. Smith, Eric Markusen
Eric Markusen
Eric Markusen was Professor of Sociology and Social Work at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, Minnesota, USA, and Research Director of the Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Copenhagen...
and Robert Jay Lifton
Robert Jay Lifton
Robert Jay Lifton is an American psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of war and political violence and for his theory of thought reform...
, Lowry was also "caught ghosting" for the Turkish ambassador in Washington regarding the denial of the Armenian Genocide
Denial of the Armenian Genocide
The denial of the Armenian Genocide is the assertion that the Armenian Genocide did not occur in the manner or to the extent described by scholarship...
.
Commenting this affair, Michael M. Gunter
Michael M. Gunter
Michael M. Gunter is an authority on Kurds in Turkey and Iraq and has written seven books on the Kurdish struggle. He is frequently consulted by media members for analysis and comment on breaking news in the Middle East. Gunter has written more than 75 articles in scholarly journals and books...
concludes:
"However, how was Lowry acting in any way different from how Armenian scholars and their supporters have their long-running campaign against Turkey? When looked upon in such light, the Armenian reactions to the Lowry memorandums appear petty and hypocritical."
Also, in 1990, he concluded that Ambassador Morgenthau's Story
Ambassador Morgenthau's Story
Ambassador Morgenthau's Story is the title of the published memoirs of Henry Morgenthau, Sr. covering the time when he was Woodrow Wilson's American ambassador to Constantinople, 1913-1916. The book took over two years to complete. The ghostwriter for Henry Morgenthau was Burton J. Hendrick...
was a record of "crude half-truths and outright falsehoods". According to Yair Auron
Yair Auron
Yair Auron is an Israeli historian, scholar and expert specializing on Holocaust and Genocide studies, racism and contemporary Jewry...
, Lowry is recognized as a principal source discrediting Morgenthau, giving "impetus to the Turkish endeavor to deny the Armenian Genocide". On the other hand, Gilles Veinstein, professor of Ottoman and Turkish history at the Collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
considers as "rather instructive" Heath Lowry's book about Morgenthau and, after to have "checked some of the alleged differences" between Ambassador's Morgenthau's Story and Morgenthau's archives, Guenter Lewy
Guenter Lewy
Guenter Lewy is an author and political scientist who is a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts. His works span several topics, but he is most often associated with his 1978 book on the Vietnam War, America in Vietnam, and several controversial works that deal with the...
shares Heath Lowry's main conclusions about Morgenthau's Memoirs.
Alan Fisher, professor of History at Michigan State University, supported Heath Lowry both against the critics and for his conclusions regarding the Ambassador Morgenthau's Story.
Works
- The Evrenos Dynasty of Yenice-i Vardar: Notes & Documents. Istanbul: Bahçesehir University Publications, 2010.
- In the Footsteps of the Ottomans: A Search for Sacred Spaces & Architectural Monuments in Northern Greece. Istanbul: Bahçesehir University Publications, 2009.
- An Ongoing Affair: Turkey & I, 2008. Istanbul & Eden (South Dakota): Çitlembik & Nettleberry, 2008.
- Defterology Revisited: Studies on 15th & 16th Century Ottoman Society, Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2008.
- The Shaping of the Ottoman Balkans, 1350–1550: Conquest, Settlement & Infrastructural Development of Northern Greece, Istanbul: Baçesehir University Publications, 2008.
- The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (SUNY Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East). Albany: SUNY Press, 2003. ISBN 0791456358
- Ottoman Bursa in Travel Accounts. Bloomington: Indiana University Press (Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies Publications), 2003. ISBN 1878318160
- Fifteenth Century Ottoman Realities: Christian Peasant Life on the Aegean Island of Limnos, Istanbul: Eren Press, 2002. ISBN 9757622893
- Studies in Defterology: Ottoman Society in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Istanbul, Istanbul: Isis Press), 1992. ISBN 9754280460
- The Story Behind ‘Ambassador Morgenthau's Story’, Istanbul (Isis Press), 1990. ISBN 9754280193. Translated into French, German and Turkish.
- “The Turkish History: on What Sources Will it be Based? A Case Study on the Burning of Izmir”, The Journal of Ottoman Studies, Volume VIII (1989), pp. 1-29.
- “Halide Edip Hanim in Ankara: April 2, 1920 - August 16, 1921”, I. Uluslarasi Atatürk Sempozyumu, Ankara, 1987, pp. 691–710.
- Continuity and Change in Late Byzantine and Early Ottoman Society [with: A. Bryer et al.] Cambridge, MA & Birmingham, England: Dumbarton Oaks & University of Birmingham, 1985. ISBN 0704407485
- “Richard G. Hovannisian on Lieutenant Robert Steed Dunn”, The Journal of Ottoman Studies, Volume V (1985), pp. 209–252.
- “The U.S. Congress and Adolf Hitler on the Armenians”, Political Communication and Persuasion, Volume 3, Number 2 (1985).
- “Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Armenian Terrorism: ‘Threads of Continuity’,” International Terrorism and the Drug Connection, Ankara: Ankara University Press, 1984, pp. 71-83.
- “American Observers in Anatolia ca 1920: The Bristol Papers”, in Bosphorus University (ed.), Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (1912-1926), Istanbul: Tasvir Press, 1984, pp. 42–58.
- The Islamization and Turkification of Trabzon, 1461-1483. Istanbul (Bosphorus University Press), 1981 & 1999. ISBN 0878501029
External links
- Official biography
- http://users.ids.net/~gregan/crednt.htmlArmenian genocide and Turkish studies, by Peter BalakianPeter BalakianPeter Balakian is a poet, writer and academic, the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of Humanities at Colgate University.- Life :...
and Roger SmithRoger SmithRoger Smith may refer to:* Roger Smith , American television and film actor and screenwriter* Roger Smith , English soccer player* Roger Smith , Bahamian tour tennis player...
, The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 1, 1995] - Turkish endowment gifts to U.S. colleges spur debate over study of Armenian massacre, The Boston Globe, November 24, 1995