Eleftherios Venizelos, Prime Minister of Greece, 1910-1920 and 1928-1932, could be considered from many points of view the creator of contemporary Greece and one of the main actors in European diplomacy in the period 1910-1935. Yet the last book-length study discussing the man, his politics and his broader role in twentieth-century history has appeared in English more than fifty years ago. The aspiration of the present book is to fill this lacuna by bringing together the concerted research effort of twelve experts on Greek history and politics. The book draws on considerable new research that has appeared in Greek in the last quarter century, but does not confine the treatment of the subject in a purely Greek or even Balkan context. The entire project is oriented toward placing the study of Venizelos' leadership in the broad setting of twentieth-century politics and diplomacy. The complex and often dramatic trajectory of Venizelos' career from Cretan rebel to an admired European statesman is chartered out in a sequence of chapters that survey his meteoric rise and great achievements in Greek and European politics in the early decades of the twentieth century, amidst violent passions and tragic conflicts. Five further essays appraise in depth some critical aspects of his policies, while a final chapter offers some glimpses into a great statesman's personal and intellectual world. The book is based on extensive scholarship but it is eminently readable and it should appeal to all those interested in twentieth-century history, politics and biography, offering a vivid sense of the hopes and tragedies of Greek and European history in the age of the Great War and of the interwar crisis.

Eleftherios Venizelos (1864–1936) was the outstanding Greek statesman of the first half of the twentieth century. Michael Llewellyn-Smith traces his early years, political apprenticeship in Crete, and energetic role in that island’s emancipation from both Ottoman rule and the arbitrary rule of Prince George of Greece. Summoned to Athens in 1910 by a cabal of officers, Venizelos mastered the Greek political scene, sent the military back to barracks, and led the country through a glorious period of constitutional and political reform, ending in a Balkan alliance waging successful war against Ottoman rule in Europe. By 1914, Greece had doubled in territory and population, and was about to face the challenges of European war. Tensions were rising between the king and the prime minister, foreshadowing political schism. This book illuminates Venizelos’ political mastery, liberalism and nationalism, and traces his fateful friendship with David Lloyd George. A second volume will complete his story, with the Great War, the post-war peace settlement, Greece’s Asia Minor disaster, and Venizelos’ late years of renewed prime ministerial office, political polarisation and exile in Paris.

This work examines Greek political life and Eleftherios Venizelos from 1910 to 1936. To better understand the Greek political scene and Venizelos’ meteoric rise and ungraceful fall and to provide the necessary context, this book also considers politics on the island of Crete, Venizelos’ birthplace, from the early nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. This work is not a biography of Eleftherios Venizelos. Instead, Venizelos is the instrument used to shed light into the unsettled waters of Greek politics.

Eleftherios Venizelos (1864-1936) was the outstanding Greek statesman of the first half of the twentieth century. Michael Llewellyn-Smith traces his early years, political apprenticeship in Crete, and energetic role in that island's emancipation from both Ottoman rule and the arbitrary rule of Prince George of Greece. Summoned to Athens in 1910 by a cabal of officers, Venizelos mastered the Greek political scene, sent the military back to barracks, and led the country through a glorious period of constitutional and political reform, ending in a Balkan alliance waging successful war against Ottoman rule in Europe. By 1914, Greece had doubled in territory and population, and was about to face the challenges of European war. Tensions were rising between the king and the prime minister, foreshadowing political schism. This book illuminates Venizelos' political mastery, liberalism and nationalism, and traces his fateful friendship with David Lloyd George. A second volume will complete his story, with the Great War, the post-war peace settlement, Greece's Asia Minor disaster, and Venizelos' late years of renewed prime ministerial office, political polarization and exile in Paris.

A piece of modern Greek history worthy of Thucydides

This book provides a concise, illustrated introduction to the history of modern Greece, with a new final chapter about Greek history and politics to the present day. 56 illustrations. 10 maps.

This book is concerned with a large question in one small, but highly problematic case: how can a prime minister establish control and coordination across his or her government? The Greek system of government sustains a 'paradox of power' at its very core. The Constitution provides the prime minister with extensive and often unchecked powers. Yet, the operational structures, processes and resources around the prime minister undermine their power to manage the government. Through a study of all main premierships between 1974 and 2009, Prime Ministers in Greece argues that the Greek prime minister has been 'an emperor without clothes'. The costs of this paradox included the inability to achieve key policy objectives under successive governments and a fragmented system of governance that provided the backdrop to Greece's economic meltdown in 2010. Building on an unprecedented range of interviews and archival material, Featherstone and Papadimitriou set out to explore how this paradox has been sustained. They conclude with the Greek system meeting its 'nemesis': the arrival of the close supervision of its government by the 'Troika' - the representatives of Greece's creditors. The debt crisis challenged taboos and forced a self-reflection. It remains unclear, however, whether either the external strategy or the domestic response is likely to be sufficient to make the Greek system of governance 'fit for purpose'.