Greece After the War: Years of Hope

Stirring images of Greece and her people in a time of change, from noted photographer Robert A. McCabe. When photographer Robert A. McCabe first came to Greece as a college student in 1954, he found a country still scarred by the Axis occupation of World War II and the civil war that followed: poverty was widespread, and the infrastructure was underbuilt and battered. But, at the same time, these were years of hope: new ventures ranging from shipping lines to state-sponsored tourist hotels to ice cream distribution heralded the nation's rapid development into a modern European state. And all around were visible the beauty of the Greek landscape, the splendour of the Greek archaeological heritage, and the optimism of the Greek people, who maintained age-old cultural traditions even in the most challenging conditions. This volume, published on the occasion of an important exhibition at the European Culture Centre of Delphi, collects 118 of the most compelling photographs that McCabe took in Greece between 1954 and 1965. Working in both black and white and colour, he ranged through the mainland, the Peloponnese, and the islands, capturing scenes of a country on the brink of rapid change: a policeman directing traffic from a booth in the middle of an Athens intersection, before the city had traffic lights; a caique full of freshly harvested grapes pulling into the port of Katapola on Amorgos; a performance of Euripides' Hippolytos in the ancient theatre at the very first Epidauros Festival. Furnished with meticulously researched captions, as well as essays by the literary scholar Panagiotis Roilos, the journalist Katerina Lymperopoulou, and McCabe himself, Greece after the War is an essential visual document of modern European history. AUTHORS: Robert A. McCabe was born in Chicago in 1934. He started taking photographs in 1939 with a Kodak Brownie given to him by his father, who published a tabloid newspaper in New York. His work is featured in a permanent exhibition at the Greek consulate in Boston, MA. McCabe's fifteen published photo books include the Abbeville titles Mykonos, Mycenae: From Myth to History, The Ramble in Central Park: A Wilderness West of Fifth, and Three Days in Havana. Panagiotis Roilos is the George Seferis Professor of Modern Greek Studies and Professor of Comparative Literature, as well as a Faculty Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. He is the President of the European Cultural Centre of Delphi. He is the author and (co-)editor of ten books. He is currently completing a book on hyperreality, the crisis of representation, and posthumanism (Neomedieval Metacapitalism), and another one on Postclassical Imaginaries: A Cognitive Anthropology of Late Antique and Byzantine Phantasia. Katerina Lymperopoulou has more than three decades of experience as a journalist for the leading newspapers in Greece. Her marriage to a native of Zakynthos has connected her closely with the Ionian islands and the Strofades. SELLING POINTS: . McCabe is one of the most distinguished photographers of Greece - in fact, he has been made an honorary citizen of Greece for his services to the country. . The volume includes 118 colour and black-and-white photographs McCabe took in Greece between 1954 and 1965 . Images document a time of significant change and reconstruction after Greece was devastated during World War II, many "portraying aspects that only those from older generations will remember ever existed" notes McCabe . Publication followed an important exhibition at the European Culture Centre of Delphi, on view June 10 through September 30, 2023 118 b/w photographs

About the Author :
Robert A. McCabe was born in Chicago in 1934. He started taking photographs in 1939 with a Kodak Brownie given to him by his father, who published a tabloid newspaper in New York. His work is featured in a permanent exhibition at the Greek consulate in Boston, MA. McCabe's fifteen published photo books include the Abbeville titles Mykonos, Mycenae: From Myth to History, The Ramble in Central Park: A Wilderness West of Fifth, and Three Days in Havana. Panagiotis Roilos is the George Seferis Professor of Modern Greek Studies and Professor of Comparative Literature, as well as a Faculty Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. He is the President of the European Cultural Centre of Delphi. He is the author and (co-)editor of ten books. He is currently completing a book on hyperreality, the crisis of representation, and posthumanism (Neomedieval Metacapitalism), and another one on Postclassical Imaginaries: A Cognitive Anthropology of Late Antique and Byzantine Phantasia. Katerina Lymperopoulou has more than three decades of experience as a journalist for the leading newspapers in Greece. Her marriage to a native of Zakynthos has connected her closely with the Ionian islands and the Strofades.

Review :
"Beautifully evocative of people and ways of life gone by, in their timeless setting." - Harvard Magazine