Description
ISBN: 9781805264187
Year: 2026
Publisher: Hurst Publishers
Description:
A fresh portrait of Greece's forgotten Near Eastern identity, with old cultural, political and economic ties reforming in today's turbulent world.
Caught between wars raging in both Eastern Europe and the Middle East, Greece is an island of relative stability. Popularly considered the cradle of Western civilisation, this is a Christian Orthodox state on the edge of the Islamic world. And, after a half-century of integration into NATO and the EU, Greece is now reabsorbing into the Near East, as the West fractures and new Middle Eastern powers rise. The country's importance as a cultural and geopolitical hybrid is growing.
Travelling through the region, Sean Mathews explores at ground level the tectonic shifts reshaping Europe and the Middle East. He meets the last Greek merchants in Cairo, and hears from Istanbul's remaining Greeks about Turkey's break with the West. In Jerusalem, he discovers a budding alliance between Greece and Israel; and in a faded Ottoman port, he encounters football hooligans loyal to a Russian oligarch.
This bold reappraisal of Greece as a Near Eastern nation uncovers its Byzantine and Ottoman past as a key to survival in today's chaotic, shrinking world.
'A major contribution to a slim field of books about modern Greece. Colourfully written and deeply researched, Mathews' travels through the country reveal a compelling cast of characters and a story about how a small country on the fringe of Europe is transforming itself into a cultural and diplomatic powerhouse.' Hannah Lucinda Smith, Istanbul correspondent and author ofErdoan Rising