Background To Contemporary Greece

Indispensable for all serious students of modern Greece and essential reading for anyone interested in Greek politics, economy, foreign relations and culture. The contributors, from four different countries, combine empathy and objectivity in their studies of modern Greek literature, the development of a genuine national language, the Greek ......

This history surveys the history of the Greek people from the declining years of the Byzantine Empire to the late twentieth-century. The second edition includes a topical chapter to bring the account up to the late 1980s.

Modern Greece: A History since 1821 is a chronologicalaccount of the political, economic, social, and cultural history ofGreece, from the birth of the Greek state in 1821 to 2008 by twoleading authorities. Pioneering and wide-ranging study of modern Greece, whichincorporates the most recent Greek scholarship Sets the history of modern Greece within the context of a broadgeo-political framework Includes detailed portraits of leading Greek politicians Provides in-depth considerations on the profound economic andsocial changes that have occurred as a result of Greece’s EUmembership

Modern Greece is an updated and enhanced edition of a classic survey of Greek history since the beginning of the 19th century. Giving equal weighting to social, political and diplomatic aspects, it offers detailed coverage of the formation of the Greek nation state, the global Greek diaspora, the country's relationships with Europe and the United States and a range of other topics, including women, rural areas, nationalism and the Civil War, woven together in a nuanced and highly readable narrative. Fresh material and new pedagogical features have been added throughout, most notably: - new chapters on 19th-century nationalism and 'Boom to Bust in the Age of Globalization, 1989-2013'; - greater discussion of the late Ottoman context, Greeks outside of Greece and the international background to the Greek state formation; - revisions to take account of recent scholarship, Greekscholarship ; - new timelines, maps, illustrations, charts, figures and primary source boxes; - an updated further reading section and bibliography. Modern Greece is a crucial text for anyone looking to understand the complex history of this now troubled nation and its place in the Balkans, Europe and the modern globalized world.

For many, “Greece” is synonymous with “ancient Greece,” the civilization that gave us much that defines Western culture today. But, how did Greece come to be so powerfully attached to the legacy of the ancients in the first place and then define an identity for itself that is at once Greek and modern? This book reveals the remarkable achievement, during the last three hundred years, of building a modern nation on the ruins of a vanished civilization—sometimes literally so. This is the story of the Greek nation-state but also, and more fundamentally, of the collective identity that goes with it. It is not only a history of events and high politics; it is also a history of culture, of the arts, of people, and of ideas. Opening with the birth of the Greek nation-state, which emerged from encounters between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire, Roderick Beaton carries his story into the present moment and Greece’s contentious post-recession relationship with the rest of the European Union. Through close examination of how Greeks have understood their shared identity, Beaton reveals a centuries-old tension over the Greek sense of self. How does Greece illuminate the difference between a geographically bounded state and the shared history and culture that make up a nation? A magisterial look at the development of a national identity through history, Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation is singular in its approach. By treating modern Greece as a biographical subject, a living entity in its own right, Beaton encourages us to take a fresh look at a people and culture long celebrated for their past, even as they strive to build a future as part of the modern West.

In 1821, when the banner of revolution was raised against the empire of the Ottoman Turks, the story of 'Modern Greece' is usually said to begin. Less well known is the international recognition given to Greece as an independent state with full sovereign rights, as early as 1830, placing Greece in the vanguard among the new nation-states of Europe. This book brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines to explore the contribution of characteristically 19th-century European modes of thought to the 'making' of Greece as a modern nation. It focuses on the themes of nationalism, romanticism and the uses of the Classical and Byzantine past in the construction of a durable national identity at once 'Greek' and 'modern'.