Some, perhaps quite a few, historians and other writers have written about the "controversial" or "disputed" personality of Kapodistrias. Most of the time, their arguments are based on opinions and texts by others who have written about the Greek politician and diplomat. Other times, individual phrases from his own texts are taken out of context, and whole theories, mostly negative or critical, are built upon them.

Some will not hesitate to reach the point of unacceptable defamation or low verbal expressions. The rich and fruitful archival research of recent decades has overturned many theories of older and newer authors, shed light on several contentious points, and clarified others.

The pages of this book allow him to speak through his published, yet often overlooked, texts, and through many others that come to light for the first time from extensive research in the Kapodistrian archive of Corfu, Trieste, Padua, Athens, and elsewhere.

Many unpublished documents with unknown information about the remarkable activities he developed immediately after being elected by the Third National Assembly of the Greeks are used in this book. Most are integrated within the text, and a significant number, comprising 45 unpublished documents and letters, are published in the Appendix.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]