Greek–American Relations from Monroe to Truman is a welcome addition to a very thin set of studies dealing with US relations with smaller and less important players in international affairs. Angelo Repousis explains that the Greek–US relationship prior to 1947 was of limited importance, at best episodic, and, at least until the arrival of a significant immigration in the late nineteenth century, primarily a matter of philhellene US elites’ efforts to drive their government into a deeper support of Greek political projects. Despite some sympathy within official circles, US leaders consistently resisted involvement in these expansionist schemes. Pro-Greek groups, to their credit, provided plenty of humanitarian assistance to an impoverished Greece. Their assistance nourished a hope among Greek officials that the United States ultimately might be brought into support of their nation's expansionist project, the “megali idea.”

US public opinion generally favored Greek efforts to dismember the Ottoman Empire. However, public opinion did not translate into the sort of backing that the Greeks wanted. Distance, a well-established policy of nonintervention, and a lack of major US economic interest in Greece trumped religiously rooted anti-“Turk” feeling. Most Americans had no deep commitment to Greek political objectives. This disinterest was accentuated by the encounter between native-born Americans and Greek immigrants. As both American and European philhellenes discovered during the national revolt of the 1820s, the modern Greek was a far cry from the idealized Periclean version. Faced with native-born Americans’ hostility, Greek migrants went through the normal process of assimilation: organizing to defend their interests while displaying their fidelity to their new homeland. Divided over the political direction Greece took during and after World War I, the immigrants had limited weight on US policymaking in the critical post-World War I era when Greece recklessly invaded Anatolia to seize its western Mediterranean coast.

Repousis does an excellent job of telling this story and placing it in the context of domestic- and foreign-policy developments. The book is based on a wide range of US sources, and some Greek press opinion pieces. It places the issues addressed within current historiography, and is well written.

Unfortunately, Greek–American Relations follows the familiar American pattern of failing to deal effectively with the foreign policy of US interlocutors. Repousis knows Greek and is certainly aware of the larger issues raised by Greek independence but never engages with them. By forcing the Ottoman Empire to accept Greek independence, the European powers created an inherently dangerous situation. Greek irredentism threatened the European balance of power and its focus on territorial expansion undercut Greece's economic development, damaged its political system, and ultimately led to the Anatolian disaster of 1922. A US intervention in support of Greece's aims in either the nineteenth or the early twentieth century could have threatened European peace and American interests. It was a potential war of choice that the United States wisely avoided.

Repousis's failure to deal with Greek irredentism is accompanied by a silence on the problems facing the Ottoman Empire as it struggled to survive. He relentlessly focusses on Turkish atrocities, a real problem, but fails to deal with those perpetrated by the Greeks. Greece pioneered Balkan ethnic cleansing. Greece relentlessly crushed ethnic nationalism among its Slavic Christian minorities. In treating the post-World War I Greek intervention in Anatolia, Repousis repeats the canard that Greece was betrayed by its allies and ignores a pattern of Greek Army atrocities. Greece begged its allies for the opportunity to invade a collapsing Ottoman Empire. Lloyd George supported its objectives over the objections of his own foreign secretary and those of the Italians and the French. The decision to march a Greek army into central Anatolia was made in Athens. Greece, its army, and the Greeks of Asia Minor paid a bitter price for their mistakes. A book that deals critically with American actions fails to apply the same yardstick to Greece's policies. The author did not avail himself of Greek foreign-affairs archives to see what leverage Athens was seeking from contacts with American officials. Or how much Greek official intervention took place in the activities of the US migrant community or in its dealings with philhellene American elites. By failing to provide this needed balance the author has delivered readers half a loaf, which, while well crafted, leaves something to be desired.