Modern Greece: A Short History

This is THE BOOK for anyone wanting a very readable resource for research in modern Greek history. I used it extensively while writing my latest spy thriller, THE WINDS OF OCTOBER (2009). But be warned, it's written in British English, so you may find some of the spelling somewhat different from what Americans are used to. James R. "Jim" Stephens Also author of CAMERA SOLDIERS: The Philippine Odyssey (2007)

Woodhouse's "Modern Greece: A Short History," has saved me from some unnecessary disappointments during my first visit to Greece this fall. I will be touring Greek cities and cruising the Aegean, so I read Woodhouse's book for prepatory background information. He described the disillusionment of the 19th Century European "panhellenes" (lovers of things Greek) who flooded into Greece to help fight the 1820-1827 wars of Greek liberation. These panhellenes saw themselves as defending the lineal descendants of the heros of Thermopylae and Marathon, but they quickly discovered modern Greeks exhibit no organic connection with the world of the ancient Greek city states. At least they have no more connection than contemporary Egyptians do the builders of the pyramids. Since I have been educated in the classics of Hellenic Greece, I too had been looking forward to experiencing the world which produced Pericles and Socrates. Woodhouse showed this to be nothing but a silly romantic projection on my part. Greeks do think and act in the light of their long cultural tradition. But the tradition which informs them does not go back to the Hellenism of the 5th Century B.C.E. It goes back instead to the foundations of the Byzantine Empire at Constantinople in the 4th Century C.E. By the 7th Century this eastern branch of the Roman Empire was all that remained of classical civilization. It was defined by its distinct language (Greek) and by its distinct version of Christianity (Greek Orthodoxy). Woodhouse explains that these social and religious features of the Byzantine Empire were not erased when the Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453. The Turks incorporated many of the forms of Byzantine rule into their own empire, and left the Orthodox Church and the Greek Language largely untouched among their conquered Greek subjects. (Woodhouse claims this Islamic attitude of toleration toward conquered "people of the book" was one reason for the rapid Muslim advance. Muslim rulers were frequently experienced as being less oppressive than their Christian predecessors.) Like the Jews before them, the Greek people's common religion and language provided an enduring basis for their national identity. This became increasingly evident as the Ottoman Turks began to lose their grip on power late in the 18th and early 19th Centuries. But the Byzantine traditions of Greeks living under Turkish rule did not provide these Greeks with much purchase on democratic ideas or practices. The Byzantine Empire had often been severely totalitarian. Greek Orthodox Christianity demanded "orthodoxy" (right inner belief) as well as "orthopraxy" (right external behavior). Consensus about orthodoxy was difficult to sustain because of the complications surrounding the Doctrine of the Trinity. Christian Byzantium was riven with heresies, all having to do with plausible, but mutually contradictory, interpretations of that doctrine. Since each "heretical" faction had a belief community to back t

If you need a book on the history of Greece from 4th to 20th century, this is it. The author shows a very good knowledge of Greek history and shares his analysis of the events. At it's price, this is the best book on modern Greek history you can get.

This is an extremely fine history of Greece up to about 1990. The word MODERN appears in the title even though it starts with Constantine, but this only enriches the total work. Its main virtue is that it weaves the cultural and intellectual life of Greece into the story of national development in the post-Turkish period. Especially good is the way it details 18th and 19th century attempts to develop a national Greek consciousness. It also offers fascinating details on the intellecual currents that led to the armed insurrection against the Ottoman government.Probably deserves more than five stars.