It is only coincidental that I was reading this book during the point last year when we took in a Turkish exchange student to live with us. We had been talking about a trip to Greece and I was interested in the more recent history of the region. In general, I found this book to be a disappointment.

Part of my frustration lay not with the book itself but with the history of the period. There was so much cruelty, corruption and incompetence on both sides of this conflict that it was hard to find heros to identify with. Yes, the greeks were oppressed by the Ottomans, but they also did a fine job of fighting with each other.

As a book, I found the writing style to be very dry. I also thought that the author was so familiar with his subject matter that he forget I was not. He would often refer to future invents in a way that expressed how knowledgeable he was without quite being enlightening.