The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, 20th and Early 21st Centuries - by Antonis Liakos & Nicholas Doumanis (Paperback)

About the Book

Modern Greek History and more general history within Greece

Book Synopsis

This volume deals with a tumultuous yet transformative era in Greek history. During the twentieth century, most Greeks abandoned the countryside for the cities or the expanding global diaspora. Greek and Cypriot societies became urbanised, secularised and more 'western'. Since the Balkan Wars they have also lurched from crisis to crisis, having experienced two destructive war decades (1912-1922 and 1940-1949), the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 and the economic crises of the 2010s.
Focusing on the relationship between state and society, as well as on Greeks' place in the wider world, this book considers how Greeks have engaged with global change and the impact of international factors on their lives.

Review Quotes

This is a necessary book - a survey of a country's modern history from the long-neglected perspective of everyday social and cultural dynamics. The authors give life and voice to the vast, far-flung, but hitherto largely unheard majority of people claiming Greek identity in locally distinctive ways. They tell the unvarnished story of one of the earliest European liberal democracies with its factional fractures and its sudden solidarities; of rapid and sometimes violet social change that was often little understood by those who claimed to lead the nation; and of a mischievously independent national tail that even today proactively wags the ponderous European dog. This lively, compelling narrative shows why the history of the Greek people is vital for understanding European and global realities today.--Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University

Who are the Greeks? This volume provides new answers to the long-vexing question, situating its subject both within national boundaries and broader global context. With this truly modern and sophisticated history, Liakos and Doumanis provide an account of Greece's - and the Greeks' -dynamic, complex and complicated twentieth century.--Katherine Fleming, Alexander S. Onassis Professor of Hellenic Culture and Civilization, NYU and President of the J. Paul Getty Trust

About the Author

Antonis Liakos is Professor Emeritus as the University of Athens, where he taught contemporary history, as well as theory of history. He was chair of the International Commission of History and Theory (2010-2015), editor of Historein, co-founder of the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Thessaly, and author of numerous books, including The Greek Twentieth Century (Polis 2020 - in Greek) and the prize-winning book Apocalypse: Utopia and Historical knowledge (Polis 2011 - in Greek). He is now completing a book on the formation of a canon of history in world historiography.

Nicholas Doumanis is Hellenic Foundation Chair of Hellenic Studies and Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He taught world history at the University of New South Wales between 2001 and 2022. His books include The Oxford Handbook of European History 1914-1945 (Oxford University Press, 2016), Before the Nation: Muslim and Christian Coexistence and its Destruction in the Late Ottoman Empire (Oxford University Press, 2013), A History of Greece (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and Myth and Memory in the Mediterranean (Macmillan, 1997). He is completing a history of the eastern Mediterranean.