What do you think?
A Short History of Greece: From Early Times to 1964
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
June 14, 2023
I had just read The Shortest History of Greece and I found that I had a little more time so I picked this one up.
The Publisher's Note at the beginning points out that the material and maps for this book were originally gathered for the Naval Intelligence Division of the Royal Admiralty as part of a 3-volume Handbook on Greece. Most of the particularly naval aspects of that project have been filtered out of this revised and shortened book, but you occasionally still come across observations that were clearly meant for sailors such as, when discussing Thucydides, the authors write:
"Moreover, the [Peloponnesian] war is of peculiar interest to a student of sea-power, because, as well as exemplifying a struggle between rival political ideologies, it is a fine example on a small scale of how a war waged between a maritime and a continental power tends to be conducted."
They simply can't help themselves.
But these sorts of particularities are always harmless, in some cases, even very helpful. There are more well-made maps in this book than any modern "short history" book you'll find. What is now Greece has changed hands many, many times in the last 3000 years, and these fellows at the Royal Navy do an outstanding job of illustrating her borders throughout all the conflicts.
The only real detraction that can be made about this book is that it doesn't have a logical stopping point. Being written for contemporary administrators and diplomats, it can't simply say "here is the history of Greece up to 1922 or 1945." It needs to bring you up to date. Which, in the case of a book that ends with Greece's position in 1964, means that it can't help but become a study in the calamitous irony of modern history.
This story ends in 1964, and the authors are happy to end it with buoyant, if not quite bombastic, optimism for Greece's future. Here is a very fine passage of enthusiasm for the recent coronation of the proud King of Greece, Constantine II:
"Constantine II was fortunate in the moment of his accession. He was young and handsome, an Olympic gold-medallist in 1960, and about to be married to the lovely Danish Princess Anne-Marie: altogether a fit subject for Pindar."
I think this is just wonderful writing. It knots Ancient and Modern Greece together in one thought but somehow also allows for the unknown actor of Fate, so familiar and so formidable to the Greeks, by saying that Constantine II was "fortunate in the moment" and then rendering the rest of the sentence in the past tense. Knowing what comes next, this sentence becomes nearly Plutarchian.
Within a decade Constantine II would abdicate as the last King of Greece, Greece would fall into the hands of a pathetic military junta ("the colonels"), and her hope for enosis (union) with Cyprus would result in the disastrous splitting of the island into a Greek and Turkish side maintained by active UN military to this day. In short, the 10 years following the publication of this book saw Greece suffer, one might almost use the dramatic term "perform," her most ridiculous fuck up of the 20th Century. The irony of this history's final pages would be uproariously funny if it weren't so sad.
In any case, it all adds to the ongoing story of the Greeks — a people that has contributed more to human civilisation than any other race and is yet so vulnerable to its own tragic flaw. The great power of the antique tragedies is the ubiquity, the inescapability of Fate. If Modern Greek history shows us anything, it is that this eye of Fate is still upon us, watching.
The Publisher's Note at the beginning points out that the material and maps for this book were originally gathered for the Naval Intelligence Division of the Royal Admiralty as part of a 3-volume Handbook on Greece. Most of the particularly naval aspects of that project have been filtered out of this revised and shortened book, but you occasionally still come across observations that were clearly meant for sailors such as, when discussing Thucydides, the authors write:
"Moreover, the [Peloponnesian] war is of peculiar interest to a student of sea-power, because, as well as exemplifying a struggle between rival political ideologies, it is a fine example on a small scale of how a war waged between a maritime and a continental power tends to be conducted."
They simply can't help themselves.
But these sorts of particularities are always harmless, in some cases, even very helpful. There are more well-made maps in this book than any modern "short history" book you'll find. What is now Greece has changed hands many, many times in the last 3000 years, and these fellows at the Royal Navy do an outstanding job of illustrating her borders throughout all the conflicts.
The only real detraction that can be made about this book is that it doesn't have a logical stopping point. Being written for contemporary administrators and diplomats, it can't simply say "here is the history of Greece up to 1922 or 1945." It needs to bring you up to date. Which, in the case of a book that ends with Greece's position in 1964, means that it can't help but become a study in the calamitous irony of modern history.
This story ends in 1964, and the authors are happy to end it with buoyant, if not quite bombastic, optimism for Greece's future. Here is a very fine passage of enthusiasm for the recent coronation of the proud King of Greece, Constantine II:
"Constantine II was fortunate in the moment of his accession. He was young and handsome, an Olympic gold-medallist in 1960, and about to be married to the lovely Danish Princess Anne-Marie: altogether a fit subject for Pindar."
I think this is just wonderful writing. It knots Ancient and Modern Greece together in one thought but somehow also allows for the unknown actor of Fate, so familiar and so formidable to the Greeks, by saying that Constantine II was "fortunate in the moment" and then rendering the rest of the sentence in the past tense. Knowing what comes next, this sentence becomes nearly Plutarchian.
Within a decade Constantine II would abdicate as the last King of Greece, Greece would fall into the hands of a pathetic military junta ("the colonels"), and her hope for enosis (union) with Cyprus would result in the disastrous splitting of the island into a Greek and Turkish side maintained by active UN military to this day. In short, the 10 years following the publication of this book saw Greece suffer, one might almost use the dramatic term "perform," her most ridiculous fuck up of the 20th Century. The irony of this history's final pages would be uproariously funny if it weren't so sad.
In any case, it all adds to the ongoing story of the Greeks — a people that has contributed more to human civilisation than any other race and is yet so vulnerable to its own tragic flaw. The great power of the antique tragedies is the ubiquity, the inescapability of Fate. If Modern Greek history shows us anything, it is that this eye of Fate is still upon us, watching.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review