Ambassador John Evans’s Truth Held Hostage is the most important work about the Armenian genocide by a US diplomat since Henry Morgenthau’s groundbreaking Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story in 1918. Evans writes with an elegant clarity that allows us to experience his journey into a major personal and political ethical dilemma concerning the truth of history and the untruth of US government protocol in the name of foreign policy politics.
…This is a must read with implications for all histories of mass violence and trauma.”
—PETER BALAKIAN, author of The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response”Evans is a remarkable man who was an unusual American diplomat. A principled man steeped in history, he wrestled with the moral issue of whether to defy his own government’s increasingly awkward position on the Armenian Genocide. Evans’ tale of how he came to be involved in Armenia, his term as ambassador in Yerevan and his decision to break the US government’s genocide taboo is a compelling, page-turning read. It is fascinating not just for anyone interested in Armenian issues but as an inside story of international diplomacy and politics of recent times.”
—THOMAS DE WAAL, Senior Associate at Carnegie Europe and author of Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War”This is a book from which one learns a great deal about the Armenian Genocide. It is also a poignant and uplifting book by and about an American ambassador, John Evans, who bravely placed ethical principles over the requirements of a diplomatic post.”
—ISRAEL W. CHARNY, Executive Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, a co-founder and past-president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars

“An informative, even-handed account of a matter of international importance.”
—PAUL IGNATIUS, former Secretary of the Navy