A Concise History of Greece

Part of my prep for our first visit to Greece.

Interesting, fast-moving history of Greek politics from the late 1700s and the tail end of Ottoman rule through the 1990s. Not much room for anything aside from headline politics, however.

Struck by the history of exploitation by the Ottomans, British, Bulgarians, Italians, French, Russians and Americans. We’ve all buggered Greece in one way or other. The Germans worst of all during their brutal occupation and most recently in their role of EU overlords, though of course this book pre-dates the latter atrocity.

The Americans’ most damaging blow was likely the same game they played everywhere in the 50s and 60s in outlawing the Communist Party and sponsoring a brutal dictatorship. The show more Greeks being a nation that appear to have a particularly strong predilection for mutual aid and democracy, they naturally lean left. During the takeover by the fascist military junta and decade of dictatorship, it was of course the outlaw communists that were the sole defenders of democracy while the U.S. sponsored the fascists and Europe looked on. So it goes. show less

This book was required reading for a Greek history class that I took. I don't think that I've ever read a book that was so densely packed with information. Clogg conveys entire historic events with one or two sentences. It takes awhile to get used to the writing style because of that. Once you get into it, it is pretty easy to follow along. I really admired the skill of this author, writing so concisely.