In 1821, a diverse region of the southern Balkans, at the edge of the Ottoman Empire, entered a decade of shocking mass violence and sweeping upheavals.

Historian Giannis Kotsonis, professor at New York University, traces how, through an imperial mosaic of countless languages, religions, cultures, and localisms, something entirely new emerged: a nation-state. He reveals the daily chaos and brutality that characterized the Balkan Peninsula as the Ottoman regime disintegrated. He follows the maritime networks stretching to Odessa, Alexandria, Livorno, and the Caribbean, tracing the routes of those who would later revolt as Greeks.

At the same time, he brings forth the stories of peasants, merchants, warriors, aristocrats, and intellectuals moving between the great empires of the region. He narrates the experiences of peasants and sailors who joined the armed forces of the Napoleonic Wars, where they encountered a new mode of warfare and a new practice of mass mobilization—lessons that proved invaluable during the revolutionary decade.

Finally, he describes how, as the bloody decade of the 1820s came to an end, the Muslims of the region no longer existed, and Greece had transformed into an Orthodox Christian nation, united by a common language and the claim to recognition of an ancient past.

This panoramic book highlights how the Greek Revolution was, among other things, a demographic upheaval. Utilizing Ottoman sources in combination with archival material from Greece, Britain, France, Russia, and Switzerland, it repositions the birth of modern Greece within the context of the history of 19th-century empires and the emergence of the nation-state idea that changed the face of the world.

"The purpose of this book is to deviate from the narrative of a straight line and to turn that line toward 1821 and 1830 into a bent one. [...] It is good to remind ourselves that Greece and its revolution were altogether something groundbreaking, as were most of the revolutionaries. We do not need to recognize the Greek Revolution; we need to encounter it. Clichés must give way to admiration and curiosity. But the same applies to all historical events, and the history of Greece is a subject of study for something global. It is a way of approaching what we consider obvious and then questioning it, in order to reclaim its original brilliance. The world must become strange and then interesting again. We must admire its pioneering spirit."