Andreas Papandreou Book review

Cold War History recently published my review of Stan Draenos's very interesting book "Andreas Papandreou: The Making of a Greek Democrat and Political Maverick", which also deals with the Greek politician's role in the events that led to the military coup d'etat of  1967 and the imposition of the Greek Colonels' dictatorship.

You can read the review here (free access for 50 viewers).

Cold War History is based in the Cold War Studies Programme at LSE IDEAS, the London School of Economics Centre for International Affairs, Strategy and Diplomacy. It aims to make available the results of recent research on the origins and development of the Cold War and its impact on nations, alliances and regions at various levels of statecraft, as well as in areas such as the military and intelligence, the economy, and social and intellectual developments.

Book Review: Mobilizing on the Extreme Right: Germany, Italy, and the United States

Read this blogger's review of a very interesting book on the Extreme Right at the LSE Review of Books, here:

Book Review: Mobilizing on the Extreme Right: Germany, Italy, and the United States

Mazower article in FT

On the same day (25/05/2012), FT published another article that referred to the Greek junta.


This time it is an article by distinguished British historian Mark Mazower who has written extensively on Greece.


Professor Mazower won a Runciman Award in 2005 for his extremely interesting book 'Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews' at a ceremony where I was given the London Hellenic Society prize for my MA dissertation, which formed the basis of my research on Anglo-Greek relations in the late 1960s and mid 1970s.


In this article Prof Mazower wrote the following:

"Here, the fight against today’s perceived enemy – neoliberalism – evokes the struggle against the military junta 40 years ago, and the resistance to Nazi occupation during the second world war."

The eagles, the lion, the hammer and sicle and the phoenix

On the 43rd anniversary of the Colonels' coup I've decided to upload a book review (in Greek) of two very interesting books that were published recently and that deal with Greece's foreign relations shortly before and after the establishment of the military regime.

The two books are:
M. Vassilakis (ed.) From relentless struggle to dictatorship (in Greek), Athens: Papazisis, 2009, and
Walldén, Sotiris. Unseemly Partners: Greek Dictatorship, Communist Régimes and the Balkans (1967-1974) (in Greek), Athens: Polis, 2009

Οι αετοί, το λιοντάρι, το σφυροδρέπανο και ο φοίνικας: Οι εξωτερικές σχέσεις της Ελλάδας αμέσως πριν και κατά τη διάρκεια της δικτατορίας των συνταγματαρχών

Από τον Αλέξανδρο Ναυπλιώτη


Ίδρυμα «Κωνσταντίνος Κ. Μητσοτάκης», Από τον Ανένδοτο στη Δικτατορία (επιμέλεια Μανώλης Βασιλάκης), Εκδόσεις Παπαζήση, Αθήνα 2009, σελ. 612

Σωτήρης Βαλντέν. Παράταιροι εταίροι: Ελληνική Δικτατορία, κομμουνιστικά καθεστώτα και Βαλκάνια (1967-1974), Πόλις, Αθήνα 2009, σελ. 794.

Publication available on amazon

The book

Greece in the Balkans: Memory, Conflict and Exchange

is now available from amazon.co.uk.

The volume includes a chapter, by this blogger, on the Greek-Albanian rapprochement of 1971 .

Here's the description:

This volume brings together young researchers in an interdisciplinary study of Greek interaction with other Balkan states over the past two hundred years. The thirteen chapters of the volume reflect the diversity of a long and complex relationship between Greece and its Balkan neighbours. They thus shed refreshing light on its persistent attributes of opportunity and risk, attraction and enmity, exchange and exclusion, through exploration of historical, anthropological, literary, political and economic perspectives.

And here's some information on the editors of the volume:

Othon Anastasakis is Director of South East European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX) and Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford. He has published widely on transition to democracy, comparative politics in South East Europe, EU enlargement, Greek-Turkish relations and regional cooperation in the Balkans. Dimitar Bechev is a Research Fellow at the European Studies Centre, St Antony's College, Oxford and Lecturer in International Relations at Worcester College. He has published widely on Balkan politics and is the co-editor of Mediterranean Frontiers: Borders, Conflict and Memory in a Transnational World (IB Tauris, 2009). Nicholas Vrousalis is a doctoral student in Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He headed the organisation of the 2006 Greece and the Balkans conference on behalf of the Oxford University Greek Society.

Publication

This blogger's first publication is out:

Alexandros Nafpliotis, "The 1971 Re-establishment of Diplomatic Relations between Greece
and Albania: Cooperation and Strategic Partnership within Cold War
Bipolarity?" in Othon Anastasakis, Dimitar Bechev and Nicholas Vrousalis (eds.) Greece in the Balkans: Memory, Conflict and Exchange, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.

You can see a sample (including the preface which was written by Thanos Veremis) here.

Here's the excerpt from the overview that refers to this blogger's chapter:

'The next chapter takes us to the midst of the Cold War environment
which separated Greece from its northern neighbours, while inducing
antagonism and military competition from the outside South East Europe.
During such difficult times, however, the region’s leaders tried, more often
than not, to avoid mutual confrontation. Hence the selective attempts by
Greece to reengage with its neighbours during the Cold War. Indeed, by
the 1970s, ideological rifts mattered less than converging national
interests, so much so that Greece reengaged with its neighbours while
under a military junta. Alexandros Nafpliotis studies the colonels’ regime,
which re-established diplomatic relations with Albania, one of Europe’s
most hardline communist dictatorships, after a freeze lasting more than 30
years. Nafpliotis argues that economic cooperation and strategic
calculations trumped the logic of ideological rivalries and extreme
ideological enemies, such as Enver Hoxha in Tirana and the military
junta in Athens, chose to explore paths of cooperation.'

New book

Take a look at my supervisor's latest book on Metternich and Austria.

Here's some info on the book:

'This is the first serious appraisal of Metternich's role in the Austrian Empire and beyond. Covering both domestic and international affairs, Sked presents a fresh and convincing description of Metternich's era and argues that despite his battered historical reputation, Metternich was the leading diplomat in Europe over four decades.'

Praise for the book:

'Sked needs no introduction: he is one of a handful of leading scholars on the Habsburg empire, as well as a marvellous writer, whose elegant style draws the reader painlessly through a rich text...It opens a door, as does no other work in English, to a fascinating and significant period of history, which, today, tends to be overlooked and is often misunderstood'

--Professor J.R. Gillingham, University of Missouri-St.Louis, USA

'This is easily the best book written on Metternich in the last quarter century.'

--Professor John Charmely, University of East Anglia, UK

New book

A new book on Greek politics after the Civil War has come out in Greek.
It is a very well-written and thoroughly researched endeavour to analyse the major actors and events that shaped postwar Greece.

The book, which is written by an established Greek researcher (Sotiris Rizas) who has published extensively on a variety of topics including Britain, the US and Cyprus, is entitled 'Greek politics after the Civil War: parliamentarism and dictatorship' (translation mine), and thus also covers the period of the Greek junta, 1967-1974.

More info (in Greek) here.