In 1806 an anonymous Greek book called for a republican government, patterned upon that of the young United States, to be established in Greece, then long the rule of the Ottoman Empire. The “Americanization” of Greece presupposed independence. The book’s author, Count John Capo d'Istria, was carried away by his own version of the “American Dream,” but was also in touch with another inspirational power, Russia, which made him its foreign minister despite his attraction to the ideas of revolutionaries, Russia’s Decembrists, who wanted democratic government in their country.

Capo d’Istria was only identified as the early author of calls for a Greek Republic in the 2010s. In this revelatory new book, Dimitris Michalopoulos follows his career and that of Alexander Hypsilantis, a Greek who became a general of the Russian army and tried to attract Russia’s interest in a democratic revolution for Greece.