Book Reviews studies of Ottoman religio-linguistic commu- Thomas W. Gallant nities. It goes a step further in the direction of weakening the monopoly of now century-old The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, national(ist) historiographies on the narra- 1768 to 1913: The Long Nineteenth tives of belonging, thereby taking the poros- Century ity of intercommunal boundaries back up to historically credible levels. By sifting through Edinburgh: Edinburgh University a treasure trove of anecdotal evidence in con- Press, 2015. viii + 372 pp. nection to momentous historical events with empire-wide impact, this book invites not only Konstantina Zanou reflection on the Jewish communal trajectory, Paris Institute of Advanced Studies/ but even more importantly, to the mind of this Columbia University reviewer at least, comparative explorations of the experiences and trajectories of other im- There are four major traps a historian con- perial communities, such as Greek- and Bul- fronts when embarking upon the adventure garian-Orthodox, Armenian and so on. There- of devising a new book: first, to write a bor- in may lie one of its most lasting legacies in ing book; second, to write a narrowly framed terms of setting a stimulating agenda for fu- book which loses sight of the big picture; third, ture comparative research that will be, more to write a chaotic and labyrinthine book; and likely than not, along collaborative lines. fourth, to write a too general, oversimplified and teleological account. In one masterful movement, Thomas Gal- lant manages to avoid all of that. His History of the Greeks offers at one and the same time a book that can be taught in class as well as advance the knowledge of experts, be read in the metro as well as discussed at academic conferences, and engage unsuspecting read- ers as well as surprise specialists. How does he manage to do all of this? To begin with, Gallant seems to enjoy writing. In his book, detailed micro-descriptions and representa- tions of the wider historical context follow one another without the narrative ever losing pace (apart from one moment, as we will see later). Take for instance his chapters on the Greek War of Independence and on the Otho- nian kingdom: both start from the end and, in the manner of a film that features a story told backwards, they open with a single and powerful retrospective image: the assassina- tion of Kapodistrias and the punishment of the perpetrators, in the first case, and the last sad 160 HISTOREIN VOLUME 15.1 (2015) years of Otho’s repatriation to Bavaria, in the volume – written by Molly Greene – on the Ot- second. These images introduce the reader to toman empire between 1453 and 1785.) the discussion of the major questions of the period and allow the author to reach back and Second, the Russian empire. Gallant’s history seize the thread with which his story begins. of the Greek nineteenth century does not start Gallant’s narrative skills are also exemplified with the ascent of the Phanariots in Constan- in his breathtaking description of battles. His tinople, the consolidation of the Greek mer- writing is not only bright and clear; it is also chant diaspora in western and central Europe light and imbued with a sense of humour (I and the Enlightenment teachings of Adaman- had never imagined that a book of Greek his- tios Korais, as most histories do. It starts with tory would bring a smile to my face). In short, a war between two empires, the Russo–Otto- Gallant’s sheer pleasure in writing makes his man War of 1768–74, to which the author ded- book a joy to read, with some of the virtues of icates not one page, but an entire chapter. In the nineteenth-century novel (I confess that I fact, by paying due attention to the Russian ele- could not put it down, even though I knew how ment, this is the first account of modern Greek the story ends, of course). history, to my knowledge, that views the coun- try as the historical product not of the (incom- This does not mean, however, that Gallant sac- plete) diffusion of Enlightenment ideals and rifices depth, complexity or academic rigour. modernisation processes from Western Eu- This book is serious; indeed, it is profoundly so. rope to its southeastern periphery, but rather Gallant revisits critically some of the most con- of a Mediterranean geography of the “in-be- tested issues in modern Greek history. In addi- tween”, where different traditions from East tion, he introduces elements which have long and West met and conversed. been missing from accounts of the Greek long nineteenth century, as I shall now try to show. But it is not only the Ottomans and the Rus- sians who are present in this volume. There First of all, the Ottoman empire. Of late, histo- are other important presences too, notably rians have been drawing attention to the fact women, Greek Jews and Greek Catholics. that the Greek and the Ottoman worlds hardly Gallant successfully incorporates the pieces of communicate in our depictions of their mod- their neglected stories – to the distaste, per- ern histories. Nonetheless, far from being two haps, of Greek nationalists or male chauvin- self-contained political and cultural universes ists – in the master narrative of Greek history. in the long nineteenth century, they can only be understood fully when their histories are The most important device, however, deployed fused or at any rate intertwined. Following by Gallant is highlighted in his title: the History that lead, Gallant’s book places developments of the Greeks – not the History of Greece. The of the long nineteenth century, such as the En- difference is huge and the consequences of this lightenment, the Revolution, the creation of the decision are threefold: first, doing history of the Greek state and the Macedonia question, back people rather than of the place means that you in the context where they really belong, the Ot- include in your story not only the Greeks with- toman empire. (Besides, Gallant’s appreciation in the boundaries of the Greek state, but also of the Ottoman framework can be seen in his the numerous Rom who remained in the Otto- choice, as the general editor of the Edinburgh man empire after the creation of the new state. series of the History of the Greeks, to include a Second, by examining seriously the history of 161 Book Reviews these people, as well as of other portions of ity and supposedly impaired modernity – Gal- Greek society which remained under the juris- lant argues – obscures the fact that patronage diction of different states – and not necessarily was at the core of every democratic polity in “national states” – like the Greeks of the Ionian the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Islands under British protection, you arrive at a As to the theory of the country’s backwardness very different idea as to the inexorable neces- and of its “incomplete” path towards industri- sity of the nation-state in the nineteenth cen- alisation, Gallant says that while it is true that tury. By describing the different options avail- Greece did not attain the level of industrialisa- able during this transitional period, Gallant tion that Britain or Germany did, nowhere else manages indeed to show that on various oc- in Europe did so either. Greece, in other words, casions nationhood and empire were not mu- was no exception. tually exclusive. His book thus challenges the teleology of the nation-state. But the author’s All in all, this is a book that surprises with its decision to write the history of the Greeks rath- richness of perspectives and disciplinary do- er than that of Greece has yet another impli- mains. It literally has a little bit of everything: cation: it obliges him to take into account the economic history, political and legal history, various worlds of the so-called “Greek dias- military history, social and demographic his- poras”, from late-eighteenth-century settlers tory, urban history, environmental history, cul- to southern Russia to early-twentieth-century tural history, gender history, social anthropol- immigrants to North America. Consequently, ogy and archaeology. One is tempted to say Greece is automatically placed within the wider that the book reflects Gallant’s own universal regional and transnational framework that de- formation, as a historian, an ancient and con- termined its history. In fact, it is a central con- temporary archaeologist and a social anthro- tention of the book that Greek history, like any pologist. other, is part of global history. Gallant is fully abreast of current theoretical debates. Like every book, though, this one too has its flaws – if only minor. The first is that only a This leads me to comment on another con- chapter before the end, the story is interrupt- tribution of the book, which is, I think, equal- ed by two (long) chapters which are dedicat- ly significant: the critical reassessment that ed, respectively, to the social history of every- it attempts of modernisation theory and of day life and to the economy during the Greek Greek exceptionalism. Gallant is clearly wea- long nineteenth century. Both chapters are ex- ry of histories that treat Greece as an excep- tremely interesting and useful (even if the joy tion to the “normal path” of modernity. He has of reading diminishes when one is assailed dispensed with the once-dominant notion (still by numbers and statistics, be they econom- widespread among Mediterranean and Balkan ic or demographic – but what can you do? scholars) that there are countries with differ- Numbers are by their very nature unforgiv- ent levels of political, industrial, social or in- ing).