For almost four hundred years, between the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the Greek War of Independence, the history of Greece is shrouded in mystery: distorted by Greek writers and largely neglected by others. What was life really like for the Greeks under Ottoman rule? Was it a period of exploitation and enslavement for the Greeks until they were finally able to rise up against Turkish rule, as is the traditional, Greek nationalistic view? Or did the Greeks derive some benefit from Turkish rule? How did the Greeks and Turks co-exist for so long? And, why are Greek attitudes towards Venice, who also controlled much of Greece for many of these years, so different? In this wide-ranging yet concise history David Brewer explodes many of the myths about Turkish rule of Greece. He places the Greek story in its wider, international context and casts fresh light on the dynamics of power not only between Greeks and Ottomans but also between Muslims and Christians, both Orthodox and Catholic, throughout Europe. This absorbing and riveting account of a crucial period will ensure that the history of Greece under Turkish rule is no longer hidden. It will delight anyone with an interest in Greek and Turkish history and in how the past has shaped the Greece we know today.

What was life really like for the Greeks under Ottoman rule? Was it a period of exploitation and enslavement for the Greeks until they were finally able to rise up against Turkish rule, as is the traditional, Greek nationalistic view? Or did the Greeks derive some benefit from Turkish rule? How did the Greeks and Turks co-exist for so long? And, why are Greek attitudes towards Venice, who also controlled much of Greece for many of these years, so different? For almost four hundred years, between the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the Greek War of Independence, the history of Greece is shrouded in mystery: distorted by Greek writers and largely neglected by others. In this wide-ranging yet concise history David Brewer explodes many of the myths about Turkish rule of Greece. He places the Greek story in its wider, international context and casts fresh light on the dynamics of power not only between Greeks and Ottomans but also between Muslims and Christians, both Orthodox and Catholic, throughout Europe. This absorbing and riveting account of a crucial period will ensure that the history of Greece under Turkish rule is no longer hidden. It will be of immense value to anyone with an interest in Greek and Turkish history and in how the past has shaped the Greece we know today.

K. E. Fleming's Greece--a Jewish History is the first comprehensive English-language history of Greek Jews, and the only history that includes material on their diaspora in Israel and the United States. The book tells the story of a people who for the most part no longer exist and whose identity is a paradox in that it wasn't fully formed until after most Greek Jews had emigrated or been deported and killed by the Nazis. For centuries, Jews lived in areas that are now part of Greece. But Greek Jews as a nationalized group existed in substantial number only for a few short decades--from the Balkan Wars (1912-13) until the Holocaust, in which more than 80 percent were killed. Greece--a Jewish History describes their diverse histories and the processes that worked to make them emerge as a Greek collective. It also follows Jews as they left Greece--as deportees to Auschwitz or émigrés to Palestine/Israel and New York's Lower East Side. In such foreign settings their Greekness was emphasized as it never was in Greece, where Orthodox Christianity traditionally defines national identity and anti-Semitism remains common.

"Wonderful…a thoughtful discussion of what made [the Greeks] so important, in their own time and in ours." —Natalie Haynes, Independent The ancient Greeks invented democracy, theater, rational science, and philosophy. They built the Parthenon and the Library of Alexandria. Yet this accomplished people never formed a single unified social or political identity. In Introducing the Ancient Greeks, acclaimed classics scholar Edith Hall offers a bold synthesis of the full 2,000 years of Hellenic history to show how the ancient Greeks were the right people, at the right time, to take up the baton of human progress. Hall portrays a uniquely rebellious, inquisitive, individualistic people whose ideas and creations continue to enthrall thinkers centuries after the Greek world was conquered by Rome. These are the Greeks as you’ve never seen them before.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER As seen on The Joe Rogan Experience! A groundbreaking dive into the role psychedelics have played in the origins of Western civilization, and the real-life quest for the Holy Grail that could shake the Church to its foundations. The most influential religious historian of the 20th century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. Did the Ancient Greeks use drugs to find God? And did the earliest Christians inherit the same, secret tradition? A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age? There is zero archaeological evidence for the original Eucharist – the sacred wine said to guarantee life after death for those who drink the blood of Jesus. The Holy Grail and its miraculous contents have never been found. In the absence of any hard data, whatever happened at the Last Supper remains an article of faith for today’s 2.5 billion Christians. In an unprecedented search for answers, The Immortality Key examines the archaic roots of the ritual that is performed every Sunday for nearly one third of the planet. Religion and science converge to paint a radical picture of Christianity’s founding event. And after centuries of debate, to solve history’s greatest puzzle. Before the birth of Jesus, the Ancient Greeks found salvation in their own sacraments. Sacred beverages were routinely consumed as part of the so-called Ancient Mysteries – elaborate rites that led initiates to the brink of death. The best and brightest from Athens and Rome flocked to the spiritual capital of Eleusis, where a holy beer unleashed heavenly visions for two thousand years. Others drank the holy wine of Dionysus to become one with the god. In the 1970s, renegade scholars claimed this beer and wine – the original sacraments of Western civilization – were spiked with mind-altering drugs. In recent years, vindication for the disgraced theory has been quietly mounting in the laboratory. The constantly advancing fields of archaeobotany and archaeochemistry have hinted at the enduring use of hallucinogenic drinks in antiquity. And with a single dose of psilocybin, the psychopharmacologists at Johns Hopkins and NYU are now turning self-proclaimed atheists into instant believers. But the smoking gun remains elusive. If these sacraments survived for thousands of years in our remote prehistory, from the Stone Age to the Ancient Greeks, did they also survive into the age of Jesus? Was the Eucharist of the earliest Christians, in fact, a psychedelic Eucharist? With an unquenchable thirst for evidence, Muraresku takes the reader on his twelve-year global hunt for proof. He tours the ruins of Greece with its government archaeologists. He gains access to the hidden collections of the Louvre to show the continuity from pagan to Christian wine. He unravels the Ancient Greek of the New Testament with the world’s most controversial priest. He spelunks into the catacombs under the streets of Rome to decipher the lost symbols of Christianity’s oldest monuments. He breaches the secret archives of the Vatican to unearth manuscripts never before translated into English. And with leads from the archaeological chemists at UPenn and MIT, he unveils the first scientific data for the ritual use of psychedelic drugs in classical antiquity. The Immortality Key reconstructs the suppressed history of women consecrating a forbidden, drugged Eucharist that was later banned by the Church Fathers. Women who were then targeted as witches during the Inquisition, when Europe’s sacred pharmacology largely disappeared. If the scientists of today have resurrected this technology, then Christianity is in crisis. Unless it returns to its roots. Featuring a Foreword by Graham Hancock, the NYT bestselling author of America Before.

When in 1821, the Greeks rose in violent revolution against the rule of the Ottoman Turks, waves of sympathy spread across Western Europe and the United States. More than a thousand volunteers set out to fight for the cause. The Philhellenes, whether they set out to recreate the Athens of Pericles, start a new crusade, or make money out of a war, all felt that Greece had unique claim on the sympathy of the world. As Byron wrote, 'I dreamed that Greece might Still be Free'; and he died at Missolonghi trying to translate that dream into reality. William St Clair's meticulously researched and highly readable account of their aspirations and experiences was hailed as definitive when it was first published. Long out of print, it remains the standard account of the Philhellenic movement and essential reading for any students of the Greek War of Independence, Byron, and European Romanticism. Its relevance to more modern ethnic and religious conflicts is becoming increasingly appreciated by scholars worldwide. This new and revised edition includes a new Introduction by Roderick Beaton, an updated Bibliography and many new illustrations.

For many, “Greece” is synonymous with “ancient Greece,” the civilization that gave us much that defines Western culture today. But, how did Greece come to be so powerfully attached to the legacy of the ancients in the first place and then define an identity for itself that is at once Greek and modern? This book reveals the remarkable achievement, during the last three hundred years, of building a modern nation on the ruins of a vanished civilization—sometimes literally so. This is the story of the Greek nation-state but also, and more fundamentally, of the collective identity that goes with it. It is not only a history of events and high politics; it is also a history of culture, of the arts, of people, and of ideas. Opening with the birth of the Greek nation-state, which emerged from encounters between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire, Roderick Beaton carries his story into the present moment and Greece’s contentious post-recession relationship with the rest of the European Union. Through close examination of how Greeks have understood their shared identity, Beaton reveals a centuries-old tension over the Greek sense of self. How does Greece illuminate the difference between a geographically bounded state and the shared history and culture that make up a nation? A magisterial look at the development of a national identity through history, Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation is singular in its approach. By treating modern Greece as a biographical subject, a living entity in its own right, Beaton encourages us to take a fresh look at a people and culture long celebrated for their past, even as they strive to build a future as part of the modern West.