[MGSA-L] New Book Announcement: Children of the Greek Civil War by Loring M. Danforth and Riki Van Boeschoten

[Roland Moore]

From: ldanfort at bates.edu

This is an announcement of the publication of a new book entitled: "Children of the Greek Civil War: Refugees and the Politics of Memory" by Loring M. Danforth and Riki Van Boeschoten (University of Chicago, 2012).

At the height of the Greek Civil War in 1948, thirty-eight thousand children were evacuated from their homes in the mountains of
northern Greece. The Greek Communist Party relocated half of them to orphanages in Eastern Europe, while the national government placed
the rest in children’s homes elsewhere in Greece. A point of contention during the Cold War, this controversial episode continues to fuel
tensions between Greeks and Macedonians and within Greek society itself. Loring M. Danforth and Riki Van Boeschoten present here for
the first time a comprehensive study of the two evacuation programs and the lives of the children they forever transformed.

This remarkable study breaks new ground in several areas: in its methodology, its style, and its topic. Historically and ethnographically,
the book tells a duplex tale: by two authors, writing about two opposed camps, and exploring the vicissitudes of two states and two ethnicities.
Balanced to an impressive degree, Children of the Greek Civil War succeeds magnificently in showing the parallels between the experiences of the
two sides in a way that is moving as well as analytically compelling. Yet the greatest strength of the book, aside from the seamless writing and
its emotional impact, lies in the theorization of the children’s agency in organizing their present lives and understanding their past.”
                                                               Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University

“Successfully combining archival resources with extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Children of the Greek Civil War is a work of first-rate
scholarship, grounded in original research and sophisticated theoretical analysis, that is often gripping as it ranges from historical prose to
deeply moving personal vignettes. Given the contentiousness of the book’s subject—an understudied but highly significant episode—it is
as courageous as it is informed. The time seems ripe for beginning the process of reconciliation, and Danforth and Van Boeschoten’s work will help us move down that difficult road.”
                                                               Maria Todorova, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

LORING M. DANFORTH is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Anthropology at Bates College and the author of several books,
including, most recently, The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World. RIKI VAN BOESCHOTEN is
associate professor of oral history and social anthropology at the University of Thessaly, Greece, and the author of From Armatolik
to People’s Rule: Investigation into the Collective Memory of Rural Greece (1750–1949).

Paper $25.00 / ISBN: 978-0-226-13599-1 / Available December 2011
University of Chicago Press http://www.press.uchicago.edu
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