The Ghosts Of Plaka Beach

Sixty years after the end of World War II Stylianos (Stelios) Perrakis, Greek-born finance professor who has lived most of his life in Canada, went back to Greece to investigate a traumatic event in his family's history that colored his childhood years. The circumstances surrounding the kidnapping and murder of his maternal uncle by a Communist death squad in May 1944, in the Argolida region of the Greek Peloponnese, were cloaked in mystery, never discussed openly by family members. Using trial transcripts, interviews with survivors and with people involved in his uncle's kidnapping, and such primary materials as unpublished diaries and family correspondence, Perrakis managed to document the full sequence of events that led up to this family tragedy. He then widened his focus to draw out the implications of this particular event, painting an intimate picture of a prosperous middle-class provincial world faced with extraordinary challenges that it was unable to overcome.

Sixty years after the end of World War II Stylianos (Stelios) Perrakis, Greek-born finance professor who has lived most of his life in Canada, went back to Greece to investigate a traumatic event in his family's history that colored his childhood years. The circumstances surrounding the kidnapping and murder of his maternal uncle by a Communist death squad in May 1994, in the Argolida region of the Greek Peloponnese, were cloaked in mystery, never discussed openly by family members. Using trial transcripts, interviews with survivors and with people involved in his uncle's kidnapping, and such primary materials as unpublished diaries and family correspondence, Perrakis managed to document the full sequence of events that led up to this family tragedy. He then widened his focus to draw out the implications of this particular event, painting an intimate picture of a prosperous middle-class provincial world faced with extraordinary challenges that it was unable to overcome. This is a book full of haunting images that far transcend the boundaries of family history. There are resistance fighters who turn into mass murderers, German troops who rescue innocent hostages slated for execution, entire communities who join the fight against the Communist resistance. There are also unexpected outbreaks of generosity and compassion. As distinguished Yale professor Stathis Kalyvas writes in the foreword, 'Don't be fooled by the small scale of the Ghosts of Plaka Beach, its modest ambition, and the author's claim that he has not written a history book. This is as rigorous ad thoroughly researched a history book as they come; it is also much more insightful than most.'

This is the first biography in English of a World War II heroine of the Greek resistance, who joined the British secret intelligence services (SIS) shortly after the German occupation of Athens and was betrayed, arrested and executed one month before the Germans’ departure. She was a prosperous housewife with seven children, who had no experience in politics or military affairs, and yet she managed to build a formidable escape, espionage and sabotage organization that interacted with the highest levels of SIS agents in Occupied Greece. Book Presentation with Prof. Stylianos Perrakis (Concordia University), Prof. Stathis Kalyvas (University of Oxford), and Prof. Gonda van Steen (King’s College London)

Old Lands takes readers on an epic journey through the legion spaces and times of the Eastern Peloponnese, trailing in the footsteps of a Roman periegete, an Ottoman traveler, antiquarians, and anonymous agrarians. Following waters in search of rest through the lens of Lucretian poetics, Christopher Witmore reconstitutes an untimely mode of ambulatory writing, chorography, mindful of the challenges we all face in these precarious times. Turning on pressing concerns that arise out of object-oriented encounters, Old Lands ponders the disappearance of an agrarian world rooted in the Neolithic, the transition to urban-styles of living, and changes in communication, movement, and metabolism, while opening fresh perspectives on long-term inhabitation, changing mobilities, and appropriation through pollution. Carefully composed with those objects encountered along its varied paths, this book offers an original and wonderous account of a region in twenty-seven segments, and fulfills a longstanding ambition within archaeology to generate a polychronic narrative that stands as a complement and alternative to diachronic history. Old Lands will be of interest to historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, and scholars of the Eastern Peloponnese. Those interested in the long-term changes in society, technology, and culture in this region will find this book captivating.

An authoritative history of the Greek Civil War and its profound influence on American foreign policy and the post–Second World War period In his comprehensive history André Gerolymatos demonstrates how the Greek Civil War played a pivotal role in the shaping of policy and politics in post–Second World War Europe and America and was a key starting point of the Cold War. Based in part on recently declassified documents from Greece, the United States, and the British Intelligence Services, this masterful study sheds new light on the aftershocks that have rocked Greece in the seven decades following the end of the bitter hostilities.

During the era of the French revolution, patriots across Europe tried to introduce a national uniform. This book, the first comparative study of national uniform schemes, discusses case studies from Austria, Bulgaria, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Turkey the United States, and Wales.

This book examines the history and politics of modern Greece from the early nineteenth century to the present and the presence of diaspora Greeks in the United States during the same approximate period. It considers not only the main periods of modern Greek diaspora, but also surveys the main historical and political events in modern Greek history. Furthermore, this book examines the relationship between Greeks in Greece and Greeks in the United States and how this relationship affected developments in Greece and beyond the confines of Greece.

From 1941 to 1974, Greece experienced foreign occupation, civil war, dominance of government by the Right, and military dictatorship. Those in control and power for much of this period excluded, tormented, and killed many who resisted them or opposed them ideologically.