My review of 'Metaxas dictatorship 1936 - 40'
5 stars
Walking through the streets of Athens one may get the false impression that since antiquity, since the old days of democracy, Greece has been a developed nation. Upon reading the book which I found in a lovely bookstore, just by Kolonaki, one of the major ones that hold English books, I discovered a different Greece, outside of the romanticized narratives. The book takes the dictatorship of Metaxas (1936 - 40), oftentimes regarded as fascist - a statement with which I agree - but which in both theory and practice differ much from Mussolini, Antonescu or Hitler. Metaxas had no cult following, had no blue/black/brown shirts following him with the few exception of the youth league.
The book is a collection of essays both on the left and the right with some being more sympathetic towards Metaxas, but rather from a pragmatic statehood point of view, while others are deeply critical …
Walking through the streets of Athens one may get the false impression that since antiquity, since the old days of democracy, Greece has been a developed nation. Upon reading the book which I found in a lovely bookstore, just by Kolonaki, one of the major ones that hold English books, I discovered a different Greece, outside of the romanticized narratives. The book takes the dictatorship of Metaxas (1936 - 40), oftentimes regarded as fascist - a statement with which I agree - but which in both theory and practice differ much from Mussolini, Antonescu or Hitler. Metaxas had no cult following, had no blue/black/brown shirts following him with the few exception of the youth league.
The book is a collection of essays both on the left and the right with some being more sympathetic towards Metaxas, but rather from a pragmatic statehood point of view, while others are deeply critical of any days of his dictatorship.