Alexis Papachelas's The Rape of Greek Democracy: The American Factor, 1947-1967
is a splendidly researched, soundly reasoned, and tightly written investigation of the roots of the crisis in Greece's hybrid "crown democracy," of the plot that led to its overthrow, and of American involvement in what Margaret Papandreou aptly called the "Nightmare in Athens."
In writing his history of Greece in the 1960s, Papachelas's primary sources are the records created by extremely interested foreign observers: the diplomats of the United States Foreign Service. Since few Greek primary sources are available (outside of the voluminous record of the colonels' trial), the author has supplemented his American archival treasure trove with a judicious use of the press and also of interviews with many of the participants, including some of the coup makers and their acolytes.
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