Grèce

Deserves to remain the standard treatment of the subject in English for many decades to come' Roderick Beaton, Times Literary SupplementIn the exhausted, repressive years that followed Napoleon's defeat in 1815, there was one cause that came to galvanize countless individuals across Europe and the United States: freedom for Greece. Mark Mazower's wonderful new book recreates one of the most compelling, unlikely and significant events in the story of modern Europe. In the face of near impossible odds, the people of the villages, valleys and islands of Greece rose up against Sultan Mahmud II and took on the might of the imperial Ottoman armed forces, its Turkish cavalrymen, Albanian foot soldiers and the fearsome Egyptians. Despite the most terrible disasters, they held on until military intervention by Russia, France and Britain finally secured the kingdom of Greece. Mazower brilliantly brings together the different strands of the story. He takes us into the minds of revolutionary conspirators and the terrors of besieged towns, the stories of itinerant priests, sailors and slaves, ambiguous heroes and defenceless women and children struggling to stay alive amid a conflict of extraordinary brutality. Ranging across the Eastern Mediterranean and far beyond, he explores the central place of the struggle in the making of Romanticism and a new kind of politics that had volunteers flocking from across Europe to die in support of the Greeks. A story of how statesmen came to terms with an even more powerful force than themselves - the force of nationalism - this is above all a book about how people decided to see their world differently and, at an often terrible cost to themselves and their families, changed history. 'Exquisite, impressive' The Times'Superbly subtle and thorough' Daily Telegraph

It has been called the ‘age of revolution’. The white heat of it came in the decades either side of the year 1800. But it lasted a full century: from the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 to the great national ‘unifications’ of Germany and Italy during the 1860s. Right in the middle of this long ‘age of revolution’ and, as it turns out, the pivotal point within it, comes the Greek Revolution that broke out in the spring of 1821.

Historians have been slow to recognise the key role of the Greek uprising in 1821, and the international recognition of Greece as a sovereign, independent state nine years later, in 1830, in this process that did so much to shape the geopolitics of the European continent, and indeed of much of the world. This little book sets out to explain what happened during these nine years to bring about such far-reaching (and surely unanticipated) consequences, and why the full significance of these events is only now coming to be appreciated, two hundred years later.

'Monumental . . . A wonderful book.' Peter Frankopan'Magisterial . . . remarkable.' Guardian'Erudite and highly readable . . . An authoritative guide to the countless ways in which Greek words and ideas have shaped the modern world.' Financial TimesThe Greeks is a story which takes us from the archaeological treasures of the Bronze Age Aegean and myths of gods and heroes, to the politics of the European Union today. It is a story of inventions, such as the alphabet, philosophy and science, but also of reinvention: of cultures which merged and multiplied, and adapted to catastrophic change. It is the epic, revelatory history of the Greek-speaking people and their global impact told as never before.

Tom Holland's 'stirring new translation' (Telegraph) of Herodotus' Histories, one of the great books in Western history - now in paperbackThe Histories of Herodotus, completed in the second half of the 5th century BC, is generally regarded as the first work of history and the first great masterpiece of non-fiction writing. Joined here are the sheer drama of Herodotus' narrative of the Persian invasions of Greece, and the endless curiosity - turning now to cannabis, now to the Pyramids - which make his book the source of so much of our knowledge of the ancient world. This absorbing new translation, by one of Britain's most admired young historians, allows all the drama and mysteriousness of this great book to be fully appreciated by modern readers. TOM HOLLAND is the author of Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic, which won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. Persian Fire, his history of the Graeco-Persian wars, won the Anglo-Hellenic League's Runciman Award in 2006. His most recent book, In the Shadow of the Sword, describes the collapse of Roman and Persian power in the Near East, and the emergence of Islam. He has adapted Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and Virgil for the BBC, and is the presenter of BBC Radio 4's Making History. In 2007, he was the winner of the Classical Association Prize awarded to 'the individual who has done most to promote the study of the language, literature and civilisation of Ancient Greece and Rome'. He served two years as the Chair of the Society of Authors 2009-11. PAUL CARTLEDGE is the inaugural A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge. His numerous books include Sparta and Lakonia: A Regional History 1300-362 BC; The Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others; Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World; Ancient Greece. A Very Short Introduction; and After Thermopylae: The Oath of Plataea and the End of the Graeco-Persian Wars. He is an Honorary Citizen of Sparta, Greece and holds the Gold Cross of the Order of Honour conferred by the President of the Hellenic Republic. 'Unquestionably the best English translation of Herodotus to have appeared in the last half-century, and there have been quite a few . . . fast, funny, opinionated, clear and erudite . . . I am in awe of Tom Holland's achievement' Edith Hall, TLS'A labour of love . . . full of rattling good yarns . . . the minister for education should present each of his cabinet colleagues with a copy of Holland's admirable translation' Economist'Tom Holland has been captivated by Herodotus since he was a child. His pleasure shines through his relaxed, idiomatic, expansive and often dramatic translation ... He, like Herodotus, is a storyteller par excellence' Peter Jones, New Statesman

Written 400 years before the birth of Christ, this detailed contemporary account of the struggle between Athens and Sparta stands an excellent chance of fulfilling the author's ambitious claim that the work "was done to last forever."

"There has been much written about the Eurozone crisis, but until now nobody has told its last, tragic chapter: how the radical government of Alexis Tsipras nearly forced Greece out of the euro almost by accident. Dendrinou and Varvitsioti uncover compelling evidence that Europe was ready to let its weakest link go, offering key insights into how its leaders decide when faced with a major crisis. It reads like a thriller, making the cataclysmic events of 2015 come alive by detailing the behind-the-scenes machinations of those who decided the fate of Greece-and the euro." (Peter Spiegel, US managing editor, Financial Times)

Το βιβλίο παρουσιάζει την ιστορία του Βυζαντινού Παλατιού του Μυστρά, που δημιουργήθηκε στα μέσα του 13ου αιώνα και αργότερα επεκτάθηκε, για να γίνει η έδρα των βυζαντινών διοικητών και, από τα μέσα του 14ου αιώνα, η έδρα των Δεσποτών του Μυστρά και το διοικητικό κέντρο, που γύρω του άνθισαν το εμπόριο και τα γράμματα. Αυτή ήταν και η εποχή της τελευταίας αναλαμπής του βυζαντινού πολιτισμού. Η μορφή του ολοκληρώθηκε με τις επεκτάσεις των αρχών του 15ου αιώνα. Εγκαταλείφθηκε τον 18ο αιώνα και έγινε ένα τριώροφο ερείπιο μέχρι την εποχή μας. Το ερείπιο του παλατιού, που περιγράφεται αναλυτικά, μελετήθηκε και τεκμηριώθηκε σε ένα πλούσιο φωτογραφικό αρχείο, οδηγώντας σε ένα σχέδιο αναστήλωσης σύμφωνα με την αρχική του μορφή. Επιπλέον, η οργάνωση των αναστηλωτικών εργασιών, οι τεχνικές που εφαρμόσθηκαν και οι κατασκευαστικές λεπτομέρειες αναλύονται διεξοδικά, αποκαλύπτοντάς μας τη δημιουργία της αναστηλωμένης μορφής του Παλατιού.

'It will be read and re-read not as a treatise but as a story: one of the most extraordinary that has ever been written of the origins of Western self-consciousness' Simon SchamaThe marriage of Cadmus and Harmony was the last time the gods of Olympus feasted alongside mortals. What happened in the distant ages preceding it, and in the generations that followed, form the timeless tales of ancient Greek mythology. In this masterful retelling of the myths we think we know, Roberto Calasso illuminates the deepest questions of our existence. 'The kind of book one comes across only once or twice in one's lifetime' Joseph Brodsky'A perfect work like no other' Gore Vidal

The ancient Greek thinker refutes skepticism, demonstrates God's existence, compares metaphysics to the other sciences, elucidates the nature of the infinite, and explores other major philosophical issues.