Athens Burning

Athens Burning
Author: Robert Garland
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2017-01-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 142142195X

"In this next offering for the Witness to Ancient History series, Robert Garland writes about the Persian invasion of Greece in the 5th century BC. After introducing the reader to the contextual background of the Greco-Persian Wars, including the famous Battle of Marathon, Garland describes the various stages of the invasion from both the Persian and Greek point of view. He focuses on the Greek evacuation of Attica (the peninsular region of Greece that includes Athens), the siege of the Acropolis, the eventual defeat of the Persians by Athenian and Spartan armies, and the return of the Greek people to their land. Coming off his 2014 PUP book on the experience of diaspora in ancient Greece, Garland is well placed to speak authoritatively on this important time in ancient history when the Greeks had to flee their homeland. Garland is an experienced and productive writer whose experience producing video lecture courses for The Great Courses company makes him an ideal author for this introductory volume"--Provided by publisher.

Battle of Arginusae

Battle of Arginusae
Author: Debra Hamel
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM
Total Pages: 139
Release: 2015-06-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1421416824

An Athenian triumph against Sparta end in disaster and infamy in this naval history of Ancient Greece in the 5th century B.C. Toward the end of the Peloponnesian War, nearly three hundred Athenian and Spartan ships fought a pivotal skirmish in the Arginusae Islands. Larger than any previous naval battle between warring Greeks, the Battle of Arginusae was a crucial win for Athens. Its aftermath, however, was a major disaster for its people. Due to numerous factors, the Athenian commanders abandoned the crews of twenty-five disabled ships. Thousands of soldiers were left clinging to wreckage and awaiting help that never came. When the failure was discovered back home, the eight generals in charge were deposed. Two fled into exile, while the other six were tried and executed. In The Battle of Arginusae, historian Debra Hamel describes the violent battle and its horrible aftermath. Hamel introduces readers to Athens and Sparta, the two thriving superpowers of the fifth century B.C. She provides a summary of the events that caused the long war and discusses the tactical intricacies of Greek naval warfare. Recreating the claustrophobic, unhygienic conditions in which the ships’ crews operated, Hamel unfolds the process that turned this naval victory into one of the most infamous chapters in the city-state’s history.

Jewish Salonica

Jewish Salonica
Author: Devin Naar
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016-09-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780804798877

Touted as the "Jerusalem of the Balkans," the Mediterranean port city of Salonica (Thessaloniki) was once home to the largest Sephardic Jewish community in the world. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the city's incorporation into Greece in 1912 provoked a major upheaval that compelled Salonica's Jews to reimagine their community and status as citizens of a nation-state. Jewish Salonica is the first book to tell the story of this tumultuous transition through the voices and perspectives of Salonican Jews as they forged a new place for themselves in Greek society. Devin E. Naar traveled the globe, from New York to Salonica, Jerusalem, and Moscow, to excavate archives once confiscated by the Nazis. Written in Ladino, Greek, French, and Hebrew, these archives, combined with local newspapers, reveal how Salonica's Jews fashioned a new hybrid identity as Hellenic Jews during a period marked by rising nationalism and economic crisis as well as unprecedented Jewish cultural and political vibrancy. Salonica's Jews—Zionists, assimilationists, and socialists—reinvigorated their connection to the city and claimed it as their own until the Holocaust. Through the case of Salonica's Jews, Naar recovers the diverse experiences of a lost religious, linguistic, and national minority at the crossroads of Europe and the Middle East.

World Film Locations: Athens

World Film Locations: Athens
Author: Anna Poupou
Publisher: Intellect Books
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2014-01-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1783203420

A filmic guidebook of the Greek capital, World Film Locations: Athens takes readers to film locations in the central historical district with excursions to the periphery of Athens – popular neighbourhoods, poor suburbs and slums often represented in postwar neorealist films – and then on to garden cities and upper class suburbs, especially those preferred by the auteurs of the 1970s. Of course, no Grecian vacation would be complete without a visit to the sea, and summer resorts, hotels and beaches near Athens are frequent backdrops for international productions. However, more recent economic strife has emptied city neighbourhoods, created urban violence and caused an increase in riots in the Mediterranean city, and representations of this on film are juxtaposed with images of the eternal and idyllic city. Featuring both Greek and foreign productions from various genres and historical periods, World Film Locations: Athens ultimately works to establish connections between the various aesthetics of dominant representations of Athens.

Wandering Greeks

Wandering Greeks
Author: Robert Garland
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2016-09-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 069117380X

Most classical authors and modern historians depict the ancient Greek world as essentially stable and even static, once the so-called colonization movement came to an end. But Robert Garland argues that the Greeks were highly mobile, that their movement was essential to the survival, success, and sheer sustainability of their society, and that this wandering became a defining characteristic of their culture. Addressing a neglected but essential subject, Wandering Greeks focuses on the diaspora of tens of thousands of people between about 700 and 325 BCE, demonstrating the degree to which Greeks were liable to be forced to leave their homes due to political upheaval, oppression, poverty, warfare, or simply a desire to better themselves. Attempting to enter into the mind-set of these wanderers, the book provides an insightful and sympathetic account of what it meant for ancient Greeks to part from everyone and everything they held dear, to start a new life elsewhere—or even to become homeless, living on the open road or on the high seas with no end to their journey in sight. Each chapter identifies a specific kind of "wanderer," including the overseas settler, the deportee, the evacuee, the asylum-seeker, the fugitive, the economic migrant, and the itinerant, and the book also addresses repatriation and the idea of the "portable polis." The result is a vivid and unique portrait of ancient Greece as a culture of displaced persons.

Fire on the Island

Fire on the Island
Author: Timothy Jay Smith
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2020-07-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1950691640

For lovers of crime fiction and the allure of the Greek islands, Fire on the Island is the perfect summer read. ** "Smith offers the perfect blend of intrigue, romance, and travelogue."—Publishers Weekly ** FIRE ON THE ISLAND is a playful, romantic thriller set in contemporary Greece, with a gay Greek-American FBI agent, who is undercover on the island to investigate a series of mysterious fires. Set against the very real refugee crisis on the beautiful, sun-drenched Greek islands, this novel paints a loving portrait of a community in crisis. As the island residents grapple with declining tourism, poverty, refugees, family feuds, and a perilously damaged church, an arsonist invades their midst. Nick Damigos, the FBI agent, arrives on the island just in time to witness the latest fire and save a beloved truffle-sniffing dog. Hailed as a hero and embraced by the community, Nick finds himself drawn to Takis, a young bartender who becomes his primary suspect, which is a problem because they’re having an affair. Theirs is not the only complicated romance in the community and Takis isn’t the only suspicious character on the island. The priest is an art forger, a young Albanian waiter harbors a secret, the captain of the coast guard station seems to have his own agenda, and the village itself hides a violent history. Nick has to unravel the truth in time to prevent catastrophe, as he comes to terms with his own past trauma. In saving the village, he will go a long way toward saving himself. A long time devotee of the Greek islands, Smith paints the setting with gorgeous color and empathy, ushering in a new romantic thriller with the charm of Zorba the Greek while shedding bright light on the very real challenges of life in contemporary Greece.

Going Solo

Going Solo
Author: Roald Dahl
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2012-02-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0141965339

In Going Solo, the world's favourite storyteller, Roald Dahl, tells of life as a fighter pilot in Africa. 'They did not think for one moment that they would find anything but a burnt-out fuselage and a charred skeleton, and they were astounded when they came upon my still-breathing body lying in the sand nearby.' In 1938 Roald Dahl was fresh out of school and bound for his first job in Africa, hoping to find adventure far from home. However, he got far more excitement than he bargained for when the outbreak of the Second World War led him to join the RAF. His account of his experiences in Africa, crashing a plane in the Western Desert, rescue and recovery from his horrific injuries in Alexandria, flying a Hurricane as Greece fell to the Germans, and many other daring deeds, recreates a world as bizarre and unnerving as any he wrote about in his fiction. 'Very nearly as grotesque as his fiction. The same compulsive blend of wide-eyed innocence and fascination with danger and horror' Evening Standard 'A non-stop demonstration of expert raconteurship' The New York Times Book Review Roald Dahl, the brilliant and worldwide acclaimed author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, and many more classics for children, also wrote scores of short stories for adults. These delightfully disturbing tales have often been filmed and were most recently the inspiration for the West End play, Roald Dahl's Twisted Tales by Jeremy Dyson. Roald Dahl's stories continue to make readers shiver today.

Party Out of Bounds

Party Out of Bounds
Author: Rodger Lyle Brown
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2016
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0820350400

"Published originally by Plume in 1991, Rodger L. Brown's Party Out of Bounds is a cult classic. This twenty-fifth anniversary edition includes new photographs, a foreword by Charles Aaron, former editor and writer at SPIN magazine, and an essay on Athens, GA since the 'golden age' of Brown's story. Party Out of Bounds offers an insider's look at the phenomenon of an underground rock music culture springing from the Georgia college town of Athens. Brown uses his half-remembered memories to chronicle the 1970s and the 80s in Athens, and the spawning of such supergroups as The B-52's, Pylon, and R.E.M."--