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The book titled “Men Are Like That” by Leonard Ramsden Hartill has been reprinted by the Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM).

In 1922, Leonard Ramsden Hartill, an American who conducted agricultural reconstruction works in the Caucasus under the framework of the Near East Relief, met an Armenian man named Ohanus Appressian who had witnessed many ordeals in his life as a former soldier, farmer, and refugee. Appressian was among the many refugees Hartill employed during the work he carried out in the Caucasus. Through his agricultural training, hard work, translation skills, and substantial knowledge of the region, Appressian became indispensable for Hartill, and the two men eventually developed a strong bond of friendship.

Appressian would go on to become a main character in this book at hand. Throughout their time together, Appressian bluntly told Hartill the story of the sufferings, ethnic strife, mutual massacres, and the ugly face of the war in his lands between the Christian Armenians and the Muslim Tatars (Turks). Hartill compiled these recollections of Appressian and personally verified most of them, noticing that many other people in the region shared similar harrowing experiences. After Hartill returned to Indianapolis/US, he published his book titled "Men Are Like That" via the Bobbs-Merill Company in 1928 based on Appressian's recollections.

Unfortunately, after the start of propaganda for the genocide narrative concerning the Armenians, Hartill's book began to systematically disappear from the shelves of bookstores and libraries, and only a few accessible copies have been left, one of them being in the US Library of Congress. The systematic disappearance of Hartill’s book is not surprising, as its contents put a significant dent into the one-sided, black-and-white genocide narrative. Hartill’s book demonstrates that the tragic conflict between Armenians and Turks at the beginning of the 20th century was multi-faceted, and no one can claim to be a pure victim. Hartill’s book thus constituted a serious threat to the radical groups who had highjacked Armenian historiography for their own selfish and ideological reasons, hence the need for the book’s disappearance from the shelves of bookstores and libraries.

It was necessary to make this book physically accessible again for the sake of allowing people to acquire a more comprehensive understanding of the Turkish-Armenian controversy concerning historical events. As AVİM, we have decided to reprint this book in February 2023 without altering its contents in any way. We hope our followers will enjoy and draw their own conclusions from this disappeared book by Leonard Ramsden Hartill.

To access the book, please click: https://avim.org.tr/en/Kitap/18/pdf