The central argument of the book is that the Hamidian massacres, the Armenian genocide, Assyrian genocide, and Greek genocide should be understood as a single event, which targeted all the Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire. The authors note that it is not disputed by scholars that while five million Christians lived in the lands that became Turkey in 1894 (20 percent of the population), only tens of thousands remained in 1924, and at least two million were murdered by Muslims. The authors identify a pattern that repeats, with minor variations, across the time period under study. The first targets of attack are men of military age and those with influence, then women and children are handled later. Following previous scholarship, the authors identify Islam and religious fundamentalism as the primary causes of the genocide, which had as its aim the foundation of a pure, Muslim state. Victims were asked to convert to Islam, which sometimes saved the lives of targeted women and children. The book is more than 640 pages long.