Reader Comment on “One Man Changed Greece and Turkey Forever” by Roger Jennings
From: Cara W.F. Hyson, Lawrenceville School
Reading the article about Asa Jennings’s work in Smyrna, I immediately thought of and would like to call your attention to the late Merrill D. Peterson’s book Starving Armenians focused on the American involvement in saving Armenians in the same time frame. Peterson was a preeminent Jefferson scholar at the University of Virginia, who chose at age 70 to become a Peace Corps volunteer in his 70’s in Armenia. Although he could not serve his full term in this capacity due to ill health, he did, upon his return, devote his legendary scholarship to researching the American efforts to help Armenians during their persecution in the last days of the Ottoman Empire. It is a particularly well-written and well-researched narrative. I had the pleasure of speaking to Dr. Peterson before he died and was struck by the breadth of his intellectual curiosity- truly a remarkable historian. His obituary was published in the New York Times on October 2, 2009: