The twentieth century is full of horrifying acts. Today, horrifying acts receive so much publicity that it is easy to forget one of the most recent and terrible ones, the destruction and massacres of Smyrna in 1922. And it was not the only one of its century, because, as George Horton reminds us in his eloquent book The blight of Asia, earlier massacres of Greeks in Phocaea and Armenians throughout Asia Minor had taken place. 

Wanting to remind people of these horrifying events is not due to prejudice against the Turks. Turks easily believe that Western peoples are prejudiced against them because they are not Christians or because classical education predisposes Europeans and Americans favorably towards Greeks. In reality, however, such prejudice does not exist.