Professor Donald Quataert, one of the world’s leading Ottoman historians, has passed away at the age of 69. He was a chairperson of the Board of Governors at the Institute of Turkish Studies but resigned from this position in 2006 amid controversy over remarks concerning the events of 1915 in Eastern Anatolia.

Professor Donald Quataert, one of the world’s leading Ottoman historians, passed away earlier this month at the age of 69 from prostate cancer. He nurtured many students of Ottoman history, influenced the study of labor history in the Ottoman Empire and added to the controversy over the events of 1915 in Eastern Anatolia.

Quataert was born in Rochester, New York, and acquired a reputation as a prodigious reader even as a child. His initial introduction to Turkey occurred in 1960-61 when he helped build a radar station for General Dynamics in Samsun, Turkey. The job influenced his approach to Ottoman history and he focused on looking at “history from below,” studying the lives of ordinary people....