Greece

Biography of a Modern Nation

By: Roderick Beaton

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Paperback | 17 March 2020 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
496 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
2.6 x 12.9 x 19.4

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2020 AND THE RUNCIMAN AWARD 2021

A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

''The best history of Greece around... Beautifully written and packed with insights about the culture and the people. I will be dipping into this book for the rest of my life'' Victoria Hislop

We think we know ancient Greece, the civilisation that shares the same name and gave us just about everything that defines ''western'' culture today, in the arts, sciences, social sciences and politics. Yet, as Greece has been brought under repeated scrutiny during the financial crises that have convulsed the country since 2010, worldwide coverage has revealed just how poorly we grasp the modern nation. This book sets out to understand the modern Greeks on their own terms.

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 themselves that is at once Greek and modern? This book reveals the remarkable achievement, during the last 300 years, of building a modern nation on, sometimes literally, the ruins of a vanished civilisation. This is the story of the Greek nation-state but also, and perhaps 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.

Industry Reviews

The best history of Greece around... Beautifully written and packed with insights about the culture and the people. I will be dipping into this book for the rest of my life. -- Victoria Hislop * The Week *
His new book - judicious, well-researched and commendably up-to-date - deserves to be the standard general history of modern Greece in English for years to come. * Financial Times *
This book explores the history, not of a Greece of romantic or philhellenic imagination, but the reality of the country as it has become today. The empathy it evokes for the survival of modern Greek statehood against a recurring pattern of often existential crisis is all the more compelling, subtle and above all human in its many-sidedness. Beaton's account instantly becomes the single most outstanding treatment of its subject and shows us why - as Lord Palmerston expressed it succinctly for his own times - 'Greece' is an emotional word that still matters to contemporary society. -- Professor Robert Holland
A wonderfully engaging narrative ... It is a superb achievement and to be recommended to anyone with even the most rudimentary interest -- Professor Kevin Featherstone
A perceptive analysis of Greece's financial crisis, the embers of which continue to threaten to derail the single currency project of the EU * Country Life *
Praise for Byron's War: Indispensable * Literary Review *

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