Reviewed by:

• Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation by Roderick Beaton
• Nicholas Doumanis (bio)

Since the 1960s, students and general readers in the English-speaking world have had access to a handful of authoritative histories of modern Greece. Most were written by British scholars with long and intimate connections to the country and its people. In 1968, two works appeared with the title Modern Greece: a larger volume by John Campbell and Philip Sherrard that included detailed coverage of Greek culture, and a shorter political narrative by C. M. (Christopher Montague) Woodhouse. By the 1980s and 1990s, the new authority was Richard Clogg of Kings College London, whose Short History of Modern Greece (1979) was superseded by his classic A Concise History of Greece (1992), which supplemented the political narrative with illuminating illustrations, detailed captions, and brief biographies of significant political and cultural figures.

More recent interventions by American historian Thomas Gallant (Modern Greece, [2001] and The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, 1788–1913: The Nineteenth Century [2015]) and Australia-based Englishman David Close (Greece since 1945 [2002]) reflect international historiographical trends by according significant space to social themes and economic developments. Among the benefits that these non-Greeks have brought to the historiography of modern Greece is a level of detachment—it is difficult to imagine any of them producing a book called History’s Spoiled Children, the title of Kostas Kostis’s recent history. After all, what is the North American or British student to make of the destructive partisanship of the royalist-Venizelist schism, the Language Question, and indeed the Macedonian Question? Each of these authors provided critical accounts that betray an affection for Greece.

The same could be said of Roderick Beaton. His Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation is the most recent general history written by British scholar who has spent a lifetime studying Greek literature and folklore. Like Clogg and Woodhouse, he writes a spritely narrative with an eye for the telling detail and the facsinating aside. This book can be read cover to cover in a single sitting. Like Campbell, Sherrard, and Woodhouse, Beaton is not a historian but he is a leading expert on Greek literature and folklore and adds a perspective that is often lacking in academic histories. An otherwise prosaic section on the Metaxas dictatorship is rounded out by a refreshing sojourn into high culture and the regime’s war on rebetika and the bouzouki (260–263). Beaton’s edifying discussion of postwar film gives the reader something of the flavor of a society that was experiencing a social revolution (321–326). [End Page 223]

Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation might have done well to draw much more on Beaton’s disciplinary strengths, using them to inform his stated aim—emphasized in the book’s title—of writing “a history of Greece as a modern nation” (2). Instead, the book treats the reader to an old-fashioned national history that follows high politics and only considers society and social change in passing. Part of the problem with this “nation-biography” (2) is its nebulous understanding of the nation as an analytical category, or its lack of a working definition of what a nation is. There was a time when historians treated the nation as a given, and it was assumed that national histories were about great men, wars, and high politics. Other subject matter was not deemed serious or interesting enough to merit attention—the British historian A. J. P. Taylor once likened the coverage of non-political subjects to “occasional pauses for refreshment” (English History 1914–1945 [Oxford, 1965], vi). Nowadays, however, we recognize the fact that all nations are historically contingent entities composed of complex social formations that have undergone rapid change. States and other structures of power were, in turn, transformed by social changes. Yet in Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, these sorts of changes are implied rather than explained. Most of the population, namely women, barely figure in the narrative. Nor do immigrants, non-Greeks, children, the poor, marginal people (except for the smart...

审核人：

• 希腊：罗德里克·比顿（Roderick Beaton）撰写的现代民族传记
• 尼古拉斯·杜马尼斯（生物）

自1960年代以来，英语国家的学生和普通读者已经可以接触到现代希腊的一些权威历史。大多数都是由英国学者撰写的，与英国及其人民有着长期而密切的联系。1968年，出现了两部名为《现代希腊》的作品：约翰·坎贝尔（John Campbell）和菲利普·谢拉德（Philip Sherrard）的大量作品，其中包括对希腊文化的详尽报道，以及CM（克里斯托弗·蒙塔古（Christopher Montague）Woodhouse）较短的政治叙述。到1980年代和1990年代，新的权力机构是伦敦国王学院的理查德·克洛格（Richard Clogg），他的《现代希腊简史》（1979年）被他的经典著作《希腊简明历史》所取代。（1992年），其中通过生动的插图，详细的标题以及重要政治和文化人物的简短传记对政治叙事进行了补充。

美国历史学家托马斯·加兰特（Thomas Gallant）（《现代希腊》，[2001]和爱丁堡的希腊历史，1788年至1913年：19世纪[2015]）和澳大利亚的英国人戴维·克劳斯（David Close）（自1945年以来的希腊， [2002]）的最新干预措施反映出通过根据社会主题和经济发展的重要空间来确定国际史学趋势。这些非希腊人带给现代希腊史学的好处包括一定程度的超脱-很难想象他们中的任何人都会制作一本叫做《历史的被宠坏的孩子》的书。，即Kostas Kostis最近的历史标题。毕竟，北美或英国学生是如何利用保皇派-威尼斯主义分裂主义，语言问题以及马其顿问题的破坏性党派主义的呢？这些作者中的每一个都提供了对希腊情有独钟的批评。

罗德里克·比顿（Roderick Beaton）也可以这样说。他的《希腊：现代国家传记》是英国学者毕生研究希腊文学和民间文学艺术的最新通史。像克洛格（Clogg）和伍德豪斯（Woodhouse）一样，他在叙述故事时既讲究细节又引人入胜。可以将本书翻盖阅读，一口气读完。像坎贝尔（Campbell），谢拉德（Sherrard）和伍德豪斯（Woodhouse）一样，比顿也不是历史学家，但他是希腊文学和民间文学艺术的领先专家，并且增加了学术史上经常缺乏的观点。关于梅塔克萨斯独裁统治的本来就平淡无奇的部分，通过令人回味的高级文化之旅和该政权对雷贝蒂卡的战争而圆满结束和布祖基（260–263）。Beaton对战后电影的启发性讨论使读者感受到了正在经历一场社会革命（321–326）的社会的味道。[结束页223]

希腊：《现代民族传记》本来可以很好地利用比顿的学科优势，并利用这些信息来传达他的既定目标（书名中强调了这一目标），即写作“希腊作为近代史的历史”。国家”（2）。取而代之的是，这本书将读者带入了遵循高级政治的老式民族历史，并且只考虑了社会和社会的变化。这种“民族传记”（2）的部分问题是它对国家作为分析类别的含糊不清的理解，或者缺乏对一个国家是什么的有效定义。曾经有一段时间，历史学家将国家视为己有，并假设民族历史是关于伟人，战争和高级政治的。其他主题的重要性或趣味性不足以引起注意：英国历史学家AJP泰勒曾将非政治性主题的报道比作“偶尔休息以提神”（英国历史，1914-1945年）[Oxford，1965]，vi）。但是，如今，我们认识到以下事实：所有国家在历史上都是偶然的实体，由经历了快速变化的复杂社会形态组成。国家和其他权力结构又因社会变革而改变。然而在希腊：《现代民族传记》中，这种变化是暗含的，而不是解释性的。绝大多数人口，即妇女，几乎没有叙述。移民，非希腊人，儿童，穷人，边缘人（聪明的人除外）也是如此。