The twentieth century is filled with horrific acts. Today, these horrific acts gain such widespread attention that it is easy to forget one of the most recent and terrible events, the destruction and massacres in Smyrna in 1922. And this was not the only atrocity of the century, for, as George Horton reminds us in his eloquent book The Blight of Asia, earlier massacres of Greek inhabitants of Phocaea and Armenians throughout Asia Minor also took place.

Our desire to remind people of these horrific events is not due to prejudice against the Turks. The Turks easily believe that the peoples of the West are biased against them, because they are not Christians, or because classical education predisposes Europeans and Americans favorably towards the Greeks. In reality, however, there is no such prejudice.

(. . .) [Excerpt from the text of the preface]