The Ionian Islands and Epirus


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Drawing a portrait of the islands off the coast of Greece, Corfu resident Jim Potts narrates the cultural legacies of this unique place from Homer to modern times.




Four Years in the Ionian Islands


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The Ionian Islands


Book Description

The Ionian Islands stretch south from the Adriatic, where Corfu’s Pantokrator mountain overlooks Albania across narrow straits, along the western coast of mainland Greece through Paxi, Kephalonia, Ithaca, Lefkada and Zakynthos, to Kythira, midway between Athens and Crete. Three crucial sea-battles were fought here – Sybota (the first recorded), Actium and Lepanto – an indication of the Ionians’ role as an East-West crossroads, between Western Christendom and the Orthodox and Islamic East. Ruled by Venice in her Stato da Mar (sea-empire), the islands became an independent state, as the Septinsular Republic and then, under British Protection, as the United States of the Ionian Islands. Before the mainland Greeks had a State, the Ionian people were proud of having a university – from 1824 – in Corfu town, a World Heritage Site. The islands were united with the Kingdom of Greece in 1864 – the first addition to its territory. This book (with over thirty illustrations) explores the history, archaeology, languages, customs and culture of the Ionian Islands. Without venturing far from the islands, readers will learn much about this distinctive part of the Mediterranean and Greek world. The chapters range from the mythology of the Bronze Age (Homer’s Scheria, where Odysseus startled Nausicaa as she bathed) to today, concentrating particularly on the British Protectorate (1815–1864). One, illustrated by contemporary maps, deals with descriptions of the islands by a fourteenth-century Venetian writing in Latin. The roles of Jews, Souliot refugees, Greek revolutionaries, rebel peasants in Cephalonia, and workers in Corfu’s port suburb of Mandouki are examined in detail. There are contributions on religion and philosophy, as well as literature, music, painting, and the folk-art of carved walking-canes.







Imperial expectations and realities


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A wide-ranging edited collection that interrogates colonial expansion, and the mismatch between intention, perception and hype, and the actual realities.




The History of Families and Households: Comparative European Dimensions


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The history of family and households has been the subject of intensive research for over a generation. In the 1970s Peter Laslett and others set the agenda with a strong emphasis on geographical differences between northern and southern, eastern and western Europe. Others have challenged this view, pioneering different approaches. This volume takes stock of the field, focussing particularly on family history in South-East Europe in comparison with the rest of Europe. The authors consider what European families have in common, their regional and local differences and changes over time, using the rich and fascinating variety of sources and methods used by family historians today. Contributors include: Guido Alfani, Judit Ambrus, Mirjana V. Bobić, Siegfried Gruber, Peter Guzowski, Violetta Hionidou, Daniela Lombardi, Beatrice Moring, Silvia Sovič, Pat Thane, Alice Velková, Marta Verginella, and Pier Paolo Viazzo.




Revolutionary Spring


Book Description

New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • From the bestselling author of The Sleepwalkers comes an epic history of the 1848 revolutions that swept Europe, and the charismatic figures who propelled them forward “Refreshingly original . . . Familiar characters are given vibrancy and previously unknown players emerge from the shadows.”—The Times (UK) A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: New Yorker, The Economist, Financial Times As history, the uprisings of 1848 have long been overshadowed by the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian revolutions of the early twentieth century. And yet in 1848 nearly all of Europe was aflame with conflict. Parallel political tumults spread like brush fire across the entire continent, leading to significant changes that continue to shape our world today. These battles for the future were fought with one eye kept squarely on the past: The men and women of 1848 saw the urgent challenges of their world as shaped profoundly by the past, and saw themselves as inheritors of a revolutionary tradition. Celebrated Cambridge historian Christopher Clark describes 1848 as “the particle collision chamber at the center of the European nineteenth century,” a moment when political movements and ideas—from socialism and democratic radicalism to liberalism, nationalism, corporatism, and conservatism—were tested and transformed. The insurgents asked questions that sound modern to our ears: What happens when demands for political or economic liberty conflict with demands for social rights? How do we reconcile representative and direct forms of democracy? How is capitalism connected to social inequality? The revolutions of 1848 were short-lived, but their impact on public life and political thought throughout Europe and beyond has been profound. Meticulously researched, elegantly written, and filled with a cast of charismatic figures, including the social theorist Alexis de Tocqueville, the writer George Sand, and the troubled priest Félicité de Lamennais, who struggled to reconcile his faith with politics, Revolutionary Spring offers a new understanding of 1848 that suggests chilling parallels to our present moment. “Looking back at the revolutions from the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century, it is impossible not to be struck by the resonances,” Clark writes. “If a revolution is coming for us, it may look something like 1848.”