Modern Greece ─ What Everyone Needs to Know

When Greece's economic troubles began to threaten the stability of the European Union in 2010, the nation found itself in the center of a whirlwind of international finger-pointing. In the few years prior, Greece appeared to be politically secure and economically healthy. Upon its emergence in the center of the European economic maelstrom, however, observers and critics cited a century of economic hurdles, dictatorships, revolutions, and more reasons as to why their current crisis was understandable, if not predictable. The ancient birthplace of democracy and countless artistic, literary, philosophical, and scientific developments had struggled to catch-up to its economically-thriving neighbors in Western Europe for years and quickly became the most seriously economically-troubled European country following a fiscal nosedive beginning in 2008. When the deficit and unemployment skyrocketed, the resulting austerity measures triggered widespread social unrest.

The entire world turned its focus toward the troubled nation, waiting for the possibility of a Greek exit from the European Monetary Union and its potential to unravel the entire Union, with other weaker members heading for the exit as well. The effects of Greece's crisis are also tied up in the global arguments about austerity, with many viewing it as necessary medicine, and still others seeing austerity as an intellectually bankrupt approach to fiscal policy that only further damages weak economies.

In Modern Greece: What Everyone Needs to KnowR, Stathis Kalyvas, an eminent scholar of conflict, Europe, and Greece, begins by elucidating the crisis's impact on contemporary Greek society. He then shifts his focus to modern Greek history, tracing the nation's development from the early nineteenth century to the present. Key episodes include the independence movement of the early nineteenth century, the massive ethnic cleansing in Turkey and Greece following World War I, the German occupation in World War II, the following brutal civil war, the conflict with Turkey over Cyprus, the military coup of 1967, and democracy at long last and entry into the European Union. The final part of the book covers the recent crisis in detail.

Written by one of the most brilliant political scientists in the academy, Modern Greece is the go-to resource for understanding both the current crisis and the historical events that brought the country to where it is now.

What Everyone Needs to KnowR is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

Stathis N. Kalyvas is Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science and Director of the Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence at Yale University. He is the author of The Logic of Violence in Civil War and The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe, and the co-editor of Order, Conflict & Violence. He has received several awards, including the Woodrow Wilson Award for best book on government, politics, or international affairs, the Luebbert Award for best book in comparative politics, the European Academy of Sociology Book Award, the J. David Greenstone Award for best book in politics and history, and the Gregory Luebbert Award for best article in comparative politics.