Angelo Repousis's well-written book fits comfortably into the current pattern of studies in U.S. foreign relations, going well beyond a history of diplomatic relations between the United States and Greece to emphasize cultural relations between elites in both countries. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) figured more prominently than the State Department in dealings with Greece. This in large measure was because Greece was a figment of America's imagination. Americans in the nineteenth century saw Greece not as a product of the gradual collapse of the Ottoman Empire but as the embodiment of ancient Hellas, the source of America's own democracy.
Evidence of America's embrace of ancient Greece could be found everywhere in the early national years of the republic. Classical architecture, Greek and Roman, inspired the new state capital buildings; and names in upstate New York—Ithaca, Troy, and Syracuse—commemorate the Hellenic past. The Michigan city of Ypsilanti represents the present as well...