Greece from Junta to Crisis: Modernization, Transition and Diversity

Winner of the 2021 European Society of Modern Greek Studies Book Prize Shortlisted for the 2022 Runciman Award The recent economic crisis in Greece has triggered national self-reflection and prompted a re-examination of the political and cultural developments in the country since 1974. While many other books have investigated the politics and economics of this transition, this study turns its attention to the cultural aspects of post-dictatorship Greece. By problematizing the notion of modernization, it analyzes socio-cultural trends in the years between the fall of the junta and the economic crisis, highlighting the growing diversity and cultural ambivalence of Greek society. With its focus on issues such as identity, antiquity, religion, language, literature, media, cinema, youth, gender and sexuality, this study is one of the first to examine cultural trends in Greece over the last fifty years. Aiming for a more nuanced understanding of recent history, the study offers a fresh perspective on current problems.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1.Modernization and Cultural Dualisms 2.Eurosceptics or Europhiles? The Cultural Dilemmas of Europeanization 3.Debating the Nation and its Contested Pasts: Antiquity and Mnemohistory 4.Identity, Religion, Migration: From Homogeneity to Embracing Otherness 5.Language Questions: From Standardization to Diversity 6.From Poetry to Prose: Discovering Modernism and Revising the Canon 7.The Challenges of Deregulation: From Monophonic to Polyphonic Media 8. Cinematic Allegories: From History to Domesticity 9. Youth, Feminism and Sexuality: From Oikos to Demos 10. The Rediscoveries of Greece: From Ancient Ruins to the Ruins of Crisis Conclusion Index

About the Author :
Dimtris Tziovas is Professor of Modern Greek Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is the author of The Other Self:Selfhood and Society in Modern Greek Fiction (2003), editor of Re-Imagining the Past: Greek Antiquity and Modern Greek Culture (2014) and Greece in Crisis: The Cultural Politics of Austerity (2017).

Review :
This important work ... explores, through many mirrors, the multimodal cultural transition in our country. This is cultural history at its best – interdisciplinary, wide-ranging and packed with well-chosen detail. Tziovas explores the shifts and turns of how Greeks have been (mis)understood, by themselves and others, since the 1970s, with an admirably open mind and a determination to move on from past stereotypes. 'The first ever study of cultural transformation in Greece after the 1970's, Greece from Junta to Crisis offers us a country in transition. Based on exhaustive research and inspired by a synthetic vision, it provides unique perspectives on a dizzying variety of topics such as national identity, gay subjectivity, popular movements, cinema, fiction, classical antiquity, the Internet, and conceptions of the west. It will become the standard work on the topic.'