Michael M. Gunter

Education Gunter earned his B.A. in American history in 1964 from Columbia University, his M.I.A. from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs in 1966, and his Ph.D. in international relations from Kent State University in 1972.

Teaching experience Gunter taught at Kent State from 1967 to 1971. Since 1972, Gunter has taught political science at Tennessee Tech University. He was an assistant professor from 1972 to 1976, an associate professor from 1976 to 1981, and a professor since 1981. He won the university's Caplenor Faculty Research Award in 1995–1996 and the Outstanding Teaching Award in 1999–2000. He is only the second faculty member in Tennessee Tech's history to win both of these awards. Kurdish Autonomy and U.S. Foreign Policy, co-ed., 2020 The Kurds: A Divided Nation in Search of a State, 3rd ed., 2019 Routledge Handbook on the Kurds, ed., 2019 Historical Dictionary of the Kurds, 3rd ed., 2018 The Kurds, a Modern History, 2016 Kurdish Issues: Essays in Honor of Robert W. Olson, ed., 2016 Out of Nowhere, The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War, 2014 Earlier, Gunter published many other books and over 200 scholarly journal articles and book chapters.

Controversies Gunter has been criticized for denying the Armenian genocide and claiming that Armenians are responsible for "provoking" their own persecution. His book Armenian History and the Question of Genocide was described as "a very badly written and poorly argued volume" by historian Richard Hovannisian. Genocide scholar Israel W. Charny was extremely harsh in a review, stating: This book should be studied by all students of [genocide] denial for its artful stratagems of sounding fair, acting fairly, citing scholarship that covers divergent and contradictory points of view, speaking consistently softly, and of course calling for justice and peace, all in the course of organizing a disarming, deceitful, anti-history and anti-value-of-life work that should frighten anybody who is concerned with integrity in intellectual and scholarly works, and genuine valuing of human life.Historian Steven A. Usitalo largely agrees, noting how the work is "empirically and interpretively flawed" and wonders how Palgrave Macmillan published it as historical scholarship. He published a positive review of Guenter Lewy's book The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey after having blurbed it, raising criticism of professional integrity.