The Conquest of the Mountains
State Violence, Technology, and Authoritarianism in the Ottoman East

A microhistorical analysis of the Sasun massacre of 1894, examining how the Ottoman State colonized its eastern mountainous peripheries.

Owen Robert Miller (Author)

9781009524957, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 December 2025

256 pages
28 x 19 x 2.1 cm, 0.607 kg

Owen Robert Miller's riveting work dismantles the foundations of Ottoman historiography and reveals a hidden history of the Armenian genocide before 1915, exposing the brutal reality and unravelling a complicated story of Ottoman state violence cleverly masked as communal conflict. A gripping exploration that challenges perceptions and brings the hidden truth to light. Kamal Soleimani, El Colegio de México

In the late summer of 1894, Sultan Abdülhamid II ordered several battalions of Ottoman soldiers to destroy Armenian 'bandits' operating in the remote mountains of Sasun. Over a three-week period, these soldiers systematically murdered men, women, and children, beginning a chain of events which led directly to the Hamidian massacres of 1895 to 1897 and prefigured many of the patterns of the Medz Yeghern (Great Crime) of 1915–1917. Taking a microhistorical approach, Owen Robert Miller examines how the Ottoman State harnessed three nascent technologies (modern firearms, steamboats, and telegraphs) to centralize authority and envisage new methods of conquest. Alongside developing an understanding of how the violence took place, this study explores how competing narratives of the massacre unfolded and were both disseminated and repressed. Emphasizing the pivotal significance of geography and new technologies, The Conquest of the Mountains reveals how the tragic history of these massacres underscores the development of Ottoman State authoritarianism.

Introduction
1. Into the mountains
2. The trials of empire
3. Leaving a legacy of terror
4. The struggle over narrative
5. Sasun in the British press
6. The monopolization of legitimate narrative
7. Competing narratives
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]