Greece: A Modern Sequel

By John S. Koliopoulos

Book Overview

"...Meticulously researched...Thoroughly documented with copious footnotes, a shronology, and extensive bibliography, this work is recommended for academic libraries."
--Library Journal
Focusing on questions that seek to illuminate vital aspects of the Greek phenomenon, this modern history of Greece is organized around themes such as politics, institutions, society, ideology, foreign policy, geography, and culture. Making clear their predilection for the principles that inspired the founding fathers of the Greek state, Koliopoulos and Veremis juxtapose these principles to contemporary practices, and outline the resulting tensions in Greek society as it enters the new millenium.
Challenging established notions and stereotypes that have disfigured Greek history, Greece: A Modern Sequel is meant to encourage a fresh look at the country and its people. In the process, a portrait of a new Greece emerges: modern, diverse, and strong.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814747671
• ISBN13: 9780814747674
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: New York University Press
• Length: 407 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

A calm and justified appoach

Although not a history expert, but having devoted effort and time reading modern Greek history from various sources, I submit my personal point of view on this book. The book is well written and the authors present a rather calm and justified approach of the recent history of Greece. Of course one could argue about characterizations or the devotion of many pages on specific historical periods, yet I consider that the authors achieved to present the facts accurately and at least to provide some explanation of various `phenomena' and outcomes of conflicts or decisions. Being also a Greek and voting also in this country, I cannot fully justify subjective arguments and disputations from any side. The authors contribute in dismantling and diminishing modern `myths' and `idols' of all political sides, and that is not always tolerable. Finally, I also do not share all their ideas, yet I suggest their book for reading; it offers also the opportunity for further discussion and meditation to modern Greeks!

Fiction with footnotes

A new anthropologic specie has planted its roots on the Greek soil that of the graecosaxon liberal historian. Its main traits are neutrality, a tremendous effort to accommodate everyone's needs and wants, by massaging events, distorting the true and cutting and pasting facts. Enamored by globalization never miss an opportunity to denigrate the Greek people. How does one tactfully review this book? I'm sure the authors thought they were doing important and benevolent work and honestly believed everything they wrote; however the body of the work is a neat essay with a priori thesis and all loose ends tied together. It is hardly possible to summarize the author's treatment of the subject, but a précis of some points will hopefully clarify the possibilities available to the reader.It is admirable the effort to mention selectively the role played by the "great powers" in the unfolding of history. It is a book full of elegant lies, half truths, but not the brutal truth. On page 285 "by summer of 1917 Constantine (they avoid to use the word King) was forced to abdicate..." by what forces we will never figure out. However, we are allowed to speculate that most probably by divine providence! Or inclement weather! These disconnected historians do not have the guts to tell the readers that a French armada bombarded Athens and British and French forces landed in Piraeus and Athens...Shooting broke out and the allies were forced into an ignominious retreat (Richard Clogg: A Concise History of Modern Greece) May be, they do not want to alienate Venizelos apologists. But it is a historical fact that Venizelos became prime minister riding on foreign bayonets and using firing squads (George Kousoulas: Modern Greece) Decimate: one out of ten. In the Roman Army it was the standard punishment to take one out of every ten soldiers and put them to death. This punishment was reserved to Greek soldiers by venizelist thugs. (E. Driault: King Constantine) On page 234 we read that Ion Dragoumis "met a violent death". The authors want the casual reader to conclude that he was run over by car or kicked to death by a mule. Ion Dragoumis was picked up by members of Venizelos' Security Battalions and was shot in the street."Ioannis Metaxas, appointed dictator by the King" p 290, this is spurious scholarship. Ioannis Metaxas was appointed prime minister by the King, presented himself to a moribund parliament and won an overwhelming confidence vote. The king exercised his constitutional privilege to nominate Metaxas prime minister, the same privilege used by his brother King Paul to nominate prime minister the obscure politician Konstantinos Karamanlis in the 50s.Erased are all references to leftist terror and minimized it in a variety of subtle and implicit ways-including the choice of a skewed vocabulary. For example the murder of colonel Psaros is dubbed "death at the hands of ELAS" p.71. May be, the authors think of a heart attack! Colonel Psaros did not just "died" as so el