Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City, Marjorie Housepian Dobkin (softcover)

Smyrna 1922 is the dramatic story of the great fire that consumed the then predominantly Greek city of Smyrna (now Turkish Izmir). The victorious forces of Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) set the city ablaze after a celebratory orgy of plunder, rape, and massacre of Greek and Armenian inhabitants, encouraged by the presence of 21 allied and American warships on the scene but under strict orders not to intervene. Smyrna’s demise marked a shift in Western foreign policy that favored Turkey, a wartime enemy, at the expense of Greece, a wartime ally. The Smyrna was covered up and “expunged from the memory of present-day man,” in the words of Henry Miller. Meanwhile, history has been repeating itself.

The author describes the tragedy of a once magnificent city through the eyes and voices of the major players, combining what reviewers of earlier editions have agreed is exemplary scholarship and a hard-driving narrative that rips aside the falsified official record. This timely book reveals the origins of festering current hostilities in Eastern Europe and the Middle East and attitudes towards the United States, whose diplomatic stance during and after the Smyrna catastrophe set an enduring pattern.