PositiveThe Spectator (UK)In reality, a lot of the questions that Beaton sets out to settle are not clear in Greek minds, let alone outside the country ... avoids vulgar questions of genetics and pedantry over Byzantium, instead broadening its scope and building on the understanding that if we are to talk about Greece as it is today we have to talk about a history that often took place far away from where the state is now located ... The author takes special care to present the duality of the Greek soul ... Beaton does a fantastic job of capturing both the spirit of the time and the individual triumphs and failures of those who played a major role in the crucial years that followed the revolution. The war for independence is placed with clarity and purpose in the context of its times and the monumental changes it brought ... It is in these later chapters that Beaton’s otherwise evenhanded and objective book starts to falter. First, in his retelling of the second world war, he adopts the views of a team of historians known in Greece as \'the new revisionists\', whose history of the civil war is considered at best controversial; and then in the overly positive light shed on the tenure of Pasok’s Kostas Simitis as prime minister from 1996 to 2004. Far from being ‘modernising’, the Simitis years are now generally seen as an example of pervasive corruption and cultural degradation...But it’s no accident that these sections appear more partial to specific political narratives. They are also subjects of intense debate within Greece at this very moment, which is why they shouldn’t be considered an indictment of the book. If anything, they’re testament to the challenges posed early in its mission ... It’s in the time the author spends on the 19th and early 20th centuries that he really achieves his object, because there he makes clear that Greece belongs to the world rather than just itself.
