This journalistic account of the author's travels through post-crisis Greece is an eye-opener, and does a good job of blending personal level interviews with the big picture of the current state of Greece. The introduction, by itself, is worth the price of the book, being an excellent long-read summary of how the current Greek crisis developed and how it is playing out. The succeeding seven chapters connect individual stories to this big picture, providing a close up look at the widespread corruption of Greek state and society, the immigration crisis, and the rise of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party. If there's a weak spot it is that Angelos did not spend enough time with Syriza party officials, though their major role in the Greek crisis took center stage immediately following the publication of the book.

Angelos, the son of Greek immigrants to America, is willing to be a sympathetic ear to the Greeks, but the facts of the case, so to speak, usually leave him, and the reader, shaking their heads in dismay. It is clear that Greece never should have been allowed to enter the Euro, but for two facts: one, European sentimentality about Greece as the birthplace of European civilization (though Germany, it should be noted, was always skeptical), and secondly, the outright fabrication and fraud of the Greek government to make their economy appear to meet the requirements of Euro membership.

Once in the Euro, the Greek government found much joy in taking the money that European banks were only to happy to lend it and, in local parlance, eating it. Corrupt government officials throughout the land became rich, but they also spread the money around. Greece has a high percentage of its workforce on the state books, thanks to a Constitution that makes it almost impossible to fire government workers, and a tradition of winning politicians giving jobs to supporters. The result is way more bureaucrats than are needed, many of whom are in fact incompetent. With the influx of Euros, the government massively increased their salaries and pensions, which became impossible to sustain once the crisis hit and the creditor nations took a look at the books.

When the easy loans stopped, the government was hamstrung by rampant tax evasion. Sure, tax evasion is an issue everywhere, but Greece takes it to an Olympic level. When the government tried to collect missing tax revenue, it ran into the corruption issue. Auditors, when they found money owed, relied on a 40-40-20 formula: 40% of the amount owed the citizen was allowed to keep, 40% of the amount owed went to the auditor, and 20% went to the government.

Germany, that paragon of responsible virtue, reacted with unsympathetic rage to the financial predicament Greece quickly found itself in. Angelos finds evidence to support the view that Germany intended to punish Greece with terms as harsh as possible in exchange for its assistance.

The punitive nature of the initial bailout agreement - the bringing out of the bats, in other words - somewhat quieted the German electorate's misgivings about helping the Greeks. German chancellor Angela Merkel made sure to emphasize the toughness of the agreement to her voters, assuring them the Greeks were being adequately chastened, that moral hazard was being avoided. Other eurozone countries would "do all they can to avoid this themselves," Merkel told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

While this book makes clear that Greece has no room to argue that it does not deserve harsh consequences, despite its attempts to do just that, the wisdom of Germany and other eurozone countries making them more harsh than perhaps necessary is certainly open to question. As the final chapter impicitly suggests, an unintended consequence might be the rise to power of a fascist, neo-Nazi party.
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Synopsis: Greece is in an economic mess. Much of this is due to becoming part of the EU without the credentials to do so. Once the country got into financial trouble, other EU countries had to bail them out, however, they demanded that Greece clean up the issues that were hurting their economy.
Review: Written from the perspective of the people interviewed, this is an entertaining and informative book. In some ways it is a preview as to what is happening in the US with our political, environmental, and immigration issues. ( )

The Full Catastrophe: Travels Among the New Greek Ruins
By James Angelos
Crown
Reviewed by Karl Wolff

A recent essay in The New York Review of Books was ominously titled "Is Europe Disintegrating?" The essay focused on Brexit, Turkey's slide into authoritarianism, and the sulfurous fumes of nationalism spreading across Europe like a gritty remake of the ramp up to the Second World War. Suffice to say, the mainstream media has shown a recent increase in apocalyptic hysteria. Then again, that's how one would act when they treated the American election like a joke. To borrow a one-liner from the world of retail, "Your lack of planning is not my emergency." Others saw the storm clouds way before the mainstream media, although not being bound to ratings and the 24-hour news cycle made them immune to reporting on every utterance of a certain reality TV star. Which brings us to Greece.

Greece's role in the Euro fiasco is not news. During the Great Recession, Greece played an instrumental role in European fragmentation and international tension. It is also a nation subject to the rest of Europe's contradictory stereotyping of it. French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing has called Greece "the mother of all democracies," but changed his tune in 2012 when he said, "To be perfectly frank, it was a mistake to accept Greece. Greece simply wasn't ready. Greece is basically an Oriental country." James Angelos, a freelance journalist and former reporter for the Wall Street Journal added, "When Europeans use the term "Oriental," in this context, it's not meant as a compliment. The Greeks were other, Middle Eastern, backwards when compared to noble, loftier Europeans." The Full Catastrophe: Travels Among the New Greek Ruins Angelos brings together investigative journalism, travelogue, and personal commentary to give a human face to Greece in the throes of the present financial crisis.

Is Greece the bastion of democracy, philosophy, and the West? Or is it a backward and corrupt regime dominated by inefficient bureaucrats, political extremists, and greedy opportunists? The answer is Yes. (Then again, I'm from the United States. Who am I to chide them for corruption and extremism? In the United States, we've turned those two things into art forms.) Angelos tours the Greece he knew as a child and encountered a country devastated by internal and external forces. He visits "The Island of the Blind," questioning citizens, medical professionals, and civil servants. He tried to understand how the island of Zakynthos pulled off such a large-scale con on the Greek government. He also interviews members of the civil service in relation to a notorious murder case. Despite committing murder, two members of the Greek civil service continued to get paid even while in jail. When questioned, supporters came back with the old saw, "Think about the children!"

The Full Catastrophe also reveals external fault lines in Greek life. When Chancellor Angela Merkel - also head of Germany's conservative Christian Democratic Union - organized the bail-out program for Greece, it included draconian austerity measures. (In fairness, Greece's government bureaucracy was a bloated, inefficient behemoth.) The austerity measures opened old wounds. Since Greece owed billions, a populist reaction rose up against the draconian measures. Greeks started demanding war reparations from Germany, since the German occupation led to starvation, oppression, and terror.

James Angelos weaves together heart-wrenching human stories with a dark comedy. While he remains proud of his Greek heritage, he doesn't hide his outrage and contempt for the long-held tradition of corruption, graft, and outright thievery present in Greek corporations and Greece's civil service bureaucracy. Greece has long been in need of massive civil and corporate reforms. When a nation is on the verge of economic collapse, austerity measures usually aren't the best solution. What better advice to tell a starving person than not to eat? The Full Catastrophe was a highly satisfying read, playing out like a Greek version of The Wire, David Simon's group portrait of universal institutional corruption of the Baltimore area.

Out of 10/9.0

http://www.cclapcenter.com/2017/01/book_review_the_full_catastrop.html ( )

This book explains many things about modern Greece, a nation often shaped by forces outside it's control. The book comes at the right moment, with increasing concerns about the debt crisis, and how ordinary people are coping with the economic crisis and the increasing tide of migrants fleeing conflicts and poverty, and trying to use Greece as a way to the rest of Europe and hopefully a better life.

The author is an American journalist of Greek descent and he gives the reader a good look at issues facing the country such as corruption, mismanagement, and an overblown and inefficient bureaucracy. It examines some of the episodes that will help readers understand how and why Greeks react to certain current events. For example, he looks at reasons why Greeks think the Germans should pay reparations for their occupation during WWII as well as some events that happened during the war that shaped the generations to come. He also examines how and why it has become so easy to take and give bribes for even the most mundane services. Something that many of us would find unimaginable.

I learned a lot about Greece, not just about its current economic troubles but more generally about what makes this country and it citizens tick. It also brings to light facts about Greece not known to many outsiders. For instance, I was unaware that the birthplace of Kamal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey was Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. This city was also once home to a large, thriving Jewish community before WWII. But during the war nearly all of the 50,000 Jews in Thessaloniki were deported to Auschwitz.

This book did leave me wondering about what the future holds for Greece. It seems that more effort is spent by Greeks, blaming outsiders, corrupt politicians and history for many of the problems currently facing the country. There seems little attempt to unite and find realistic ways to institute the needed changes. It will be interesting to see what the future brings.

Thanks to Blogging for Books for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
More reviews at: www.susannesbooklist.blogspot.com ( )

The author has a Greek heritage. In this book, he tells stories of what he has seen there since the Greek economic collapse. From the different stories he tells, you can sense his frustration with the Greek government and also the citizens' attitudes towards events. ( )