The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of Ottoman Armenians Donald Bloxham The Great Game of Genocide discards the polemics that for nearly a century have clouded our understanding of the terrible fate that befell the Armenian community in the early twentieth century. It also rejects the views of many influential histories that have anchored their explanations in the belief that there is a neat chain of cause and effect. Instead, it shows the need to appreciate the interactions of the period and their complex outcomes - between the Ottoman Empire in its decades of terminal decline, the self-interested policies of the European imperial powers, and the agenda of some Armenian nationalists in and beyond Ottoman territory. The international context of the process of ethnic polarization that culminated in the massive destruction of 1912-23, and especially the obliteration of the Armenian community in 1915-16, deserves and receives particular attention. The genocide continues to be denied in certain quarters around the world. The Great Game reveals how such denials stem from the historical 'Armenian question' itself, with many of the considerations governing the modern European-American-Turkish stances on the issue little different to those that existed before the First World War. Donald Bloxham is currently Lecturer in Twentieth-Century History at the University of Edinburgh. Previously he was a Leverhulme Special Research Fellow at the University of Southampton and Academic Research Director of the Holocaust Educational Center.