The first and only extensive treatment of the genocide of the Aramaic-speaking Christians of the Middle East, in particular the Syriac Orthodox communities, in the late 1800s and early 1900s under the Ottomans. Courtois bases his study on the diplomatic archives of the French Foreign Affairs office (Quai d'Orsay), the archives of the Dominican Mission at Mosul, Iraq, written eyewitness accounts, and oral interviews with genocide survivors conducted by the author.

Based on doctoral research, the book gives accurate facts and balanced conclusions on a very sensitive topic. (Translated from the French by Vincent Aurora.)

• Introduction
• Discovery
• The Historical context
• Research
• Note to the reader
• Transcription of place names
• Terminology of Syriac Denominations
• The Land Of The Syriacs (A land and a people, The view of travelers, The Monastery of Saffron)
• The Church, The Patriarch And The Family: The Quest For An Identity (The Weaknesses of a Nation, The Syriac mindset and its stereotypes)
• A Land Of Missions (The Catholic temptation in Syriac land, A lasting Catholic population?)
• Mixtures And Neighbors (Syriacs and Armenians, A moral and cultural Renaissance, The Nestorian and Chaldean presence, was Tur Abdin a æMountain refugeÆ?, The Kurdish world, a troubled coexistence, The Devil Worshippers)
• A Population Difficult To Count (Diyarbakir, the black city, Mardin, the second Jerusalem, Tur Abdin and its villages, Villages and Monasteries, A Christian island, the small city of Midyat)
• The Law Versus The Christians (The dawn of a new policy)
• Eradication By Massacre (1894-1896) (ôThe city is in fire and blood, save us.ö, The Situation in Tur Abdin, A Syriac exception?)
• Eradication By Conversion
• Ottoman Negligence Before The New Kurdish Powers (The murky Ottoman game)
• The Years Of Blood (The calm before the storm, The Ottoman Empire at war)
• Planning And Deportation: Autopsy Of Destruction (The Caravans of Death)
• A Sanctuary For The Syriacs? (Tur Abdin suffers two waves of attacks, The villages of the resistance: Ain Wardo and Azekh, Contrasting the assessments)
• The Time Of Recognition (What were their claims?)
• Towards A Syriac Nation: The Assyro-Chaldean Temptation
• Annexes (Documents From Diplomatic Archives, Historical Introduction, The Origins of the Syriac Church: From a Syriac tradition to a Syriac religion, Intellectual Effervescence, The Syriac tradition, The Time of Councils: the Monophysite rupture of Chalcedon in 451, Opposition after the Council of Chalcedon, A new Church is founded in resistance, The spiral of violence, Was their secession based in ethnicity?, From freedom to isolation, On the ôTigris borderö, ôThe Mountain of the Servants of Godö)