The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism
by Yanni Kotsonis
Buy on Amazon"At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Greece was not a country-it was only a vague idea. The territories we now call Greece were part of the Ottoman Empire, though some of its islands were ruled at various points by the Venetians, the French, the Russians, and the British. The population was a mix of religious and ethnic groups including Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Catholics, and Jews, who spoke Albanian, Turkish, Vlach dialects, and numerous other varieties of Greek. But by 1830, Greece was a united, independent, and Orthodox Christian country that had made a global impact in the age of empires. In The Greek Revolution: A New History, Yanni Kotsonis tells the story of the 1821 revolution and war for Greek independence, arguing that Greece's evolution was far from inevitable.…