Product Description

This historical essay explores Greece in the 1990s. It seeks to illuminate vital aspects of the Greek phenomenon using themes such as politics, institutions, society, ideology, foreign policy, geography and culture. Founding principles, the inspiration of the founding fathers, are juxtaposed with indigenous norms and practices, and the outcome of the tension between opposing forces are assessed. This commentary on issues raised about Greece in the last decade of the 20th century challenges the established notions and stereotypes that disfigure the perceptions of country.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #165876 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
'A compelling analysis of the complexities ofthe struggle for independence in the 1820sand of the impassioned debates as to the formof government appropriate to a regeneratedGreece. ... Particular strengths of the book arethe discussion of the symbiotic relationshipbetween banditry, irredentism and politics inthe nineteenth century and the insight offeredinto the afterlife of the Macedonian struggle innorthern Greece in the 1940s.' -Richard Clogg,Times Literary Supplement'An original reflection on the history of modernGreece ... The authors dispose of pious fallacieswithout constructing new ones; they raisequestions rather than provide answers-suresigns of the historian's critical mind at work.'-Stevan Pavlowitch, Journal of South EastEuropean and Black Sea Studies'Meticulously researched ... thoroughlydocumented A... recommended.'-Library Journal

About the Author
John S. Koliopoulos is Professor of ModernGreek History at theUniversity ofThessaloniki; ThanosVermis is Professorof Political History atAthens University.

Customer Reviews

A liberal perspective on an illiberal subject
Scholars and students still debate the Peloponnesian War and the veracity and method of its great historian - Thucydides. How much tougher then the gauntlet to be run by a history that covers the campaign that created the modern Greek state to the present - a period of about 200 years. This is not a perfect book because liberal academics don't do 'perfect books' - they have too much respect for evidence. In the case of Modern Greece the search for facts is confused by congeries of emotion, the burden of Western projections on Greece - ancient and modern - that go far beyond a thriving Greek diaspora, and destruction in the 1980s of mounds of records in the hope of consigning differences created by conflict - too bloody for reconciliation - to some sort of oblivion. It is an understatement to say that Koliopoulis and Veremis have striven to be loyal to their fascinating subject without being partisan. To some, such objectivity is not only impossible, it's morally dubious. There's been a long silence on the subject of the history of modern Greece - partly because that term is regarded by some as a sort of oxymoron, certainly when it comes to popular reading. In a well-stocked bookshop in Greece last year an understanding proprietor said that if I wanted something about Greece other than guides and tomes full of magnificent landscapes and perfect ruins, I should "go to a university". Here there would be dissertations, monographs and periodical articles aplenty. He was right. But now that rich scholarship, beginning, with the work - as authors and editors - of Mark Mazower, Thanasis Sfikas, Philip Carabott, Philip Minehan is beginning to circulate more widely, appear on bookshelves outside university libraries and on Amazon, for example. Koliopoulos and Veremis have managed to sidestep the pitfalls of proposing causality and consequences by pursuing themes rather than offering a linear narrative - politics and ststecraft, institutions, the economy, ideology, foreign policy. The title of the book acknowledges the reader's wish for some sense of a beginning, middle and end - the scholarly confidence of the superlative experts Woodhouse and Clogg with their magisterially confident beginnings, middles and ends. In Koliopoulos and Vereis there are many questions though, in the the end, guarded optimism. For some this will be frustrating, for others exciting. Throughout the book there are sturdy rebuttals of the stories different Greek institutions have wanted told about themselves and which, if left out of, or modified, in Greek school history texts can lose politicians their jobs - as happened in 2007 to Greece's education minister for presiding over a schoolbook that gave less emphasis than required to Turkish atrocities. 'Greece, the Modern Sequel - from 1821 to the Present' can be dipped into to section by section or chapter by chapter. It's an historical account that can be read in one stretch but it's also a reference work with a rich bibliography linked - thank goodness - to its separate parts. It encourages the reader to explore the extensive research now being done on 'what really happened' down to the level of village life across Greece and its neighbours. The book's freshness is reflected in a number of typos - tiny blemishes easily corrected in a second edition. Neutrality is impossible, but it is honourable and timely to strive to reach a vantage point that makes sense to a wider readership in so contested an area.