Aristotle Onassis was the most famous shipowner of the twentieth century. He became the archetype and image of the ship-owning magnate, the symbol of Greek enterprise on a global scale. What distinguished him from the rest was that he created the shipping business of the new global era, combining the European maritime tradition and the American institutions and resources. Almost all books written on Onassis focus on his lifestyle and personal life. This is the first book examining all aspects of his multi-faceted global business activities in the shipping, airline and oil industries. It is based on the newly-formed Onassis Archive comprising thousands of new and unpublished files of his core business. Contributors are: Alexandra Papadopoulou, Amalia Pappa, Maria Damilakou, Lars Scholl, and Christos Tsakas.
Aristotle Onassis is the most famous shipowner of the twentieth century. This book, based on the newly-formed Onassis Archive of thousands of new and unpublished files of his core business, gives a new account of all his activities in the shipping, airline and oil industry.
This study of shipping makes visible a sector that has led European economic growth for centuries, yet rarely appears in business or economic histories.
Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize • One of The Economist's top history books of the year From one of our leading historians, an important new history of the Greek War of Independence—the ultimate worldwide liberal cause célèbre of the age of Byron, Europe’s first nationalist uprising, and the beginning of the downward spiral of the Ottoman Empire—published two hundred years after its outbreak As Mark Mazower shows us in his enthralling and definitive new account, myths about the Greek War of Independence outpaced the facts from the very beginning, and for good reason. This was an unlikely cause, against long odds, a disorganized collection of Greek patriots up against what was still one of the most storied empires in the world, the Ottomans. The revolutionaries needed all the help they could get. And they got it as Europeans and Americans embraced the idea that the heirs to ancient Greece, the wellspring of Western civilization, were fighting for their freedom against the proverbial Eastern despot, the Turkish sultan. This was Christianity versus Islam, now given urgency by new ideas about the nation-state and democracy that were shaking up the old order. Lord Byron is only the most famous of the combatants who went to Greece to fight and die—along with many more who followed events passionately and supported the cause through art, music, and humanitarian aid. To many who did go, it was a rude awakening to find that the Greeks were a far cry from their illustrious forebears, and were often hard to tell apart from the Ottomans. Mazower does full justice to the realities on the ground as a revolutionary conspiracy triggered outright rebellion, and a fraying and distracted Ottoman leadership first missed the plot and then overreacted disastrously. He shows how and why ethnic cleansing commenced almost immediately on both sides. By the time the dust settled, Greece was free, and Europe was changed forever. It was a victory for a completely new kind of politics—international in its range and affiliations, popular in its origins, romantic in sentiment, and radical in its goals. It was here on the very edge of Europe that the first successful revolution took place in which a people claimed liberty for themselves and overthrew an entire empire to attain it, transforming diplomatic norms and the direction of European politics forever, and inaugurating a new world of nation-states, the world in which we still live.
In The Lagoon, acclaimed biologist Armand Marie Leroi recovers Aristotle's science. He revisits Aristotle's writings and the places where he worked. He goes to the eastern Aegean island of Lesbos to see the creatures that Aristotle saw, where he saw them. He explores Aristotle's observations, his deep ideas, his inspired guesses--and the things he got wildly wrong. He shows how Aristotle's science is deeply intertwined with his philosophical system and reveals that he was not only the first biologist, but also one of the greatest.
Eleftherios Venizelos (1864–1936) was the outstanding Greek statesman of the first half of the twentieth century. Michael Llewellyn-Smith traces his early years, political apprenticeship in Crete, and energetic role in that island’s emancipation from both Ottoman rule and the arbitrary rule of Prince George of Greece. Summoned to Athens in 1910 by a cabal of officers, Venizelos mastered the Greek political scene, sent the military back to barracks, and led the country through a glorious period of constitutional and political reform, ending in a Balkan alliance waging successful war against Ottoman rule in Europe. By 1914, Greece had doubled in territory and population, and was about to face the challenges of European war. Tensions were rising between the king and the prime minister, foreshadowing political schism. This book illuminates Venizelos’ political mastery, liberalism and nationalism, and traces his fateful friendship with David Lloyd George. A second volume will complete his story, with the Great War, the post-war peace settlement, Greece’s Asia Minor disaster, and Venizelos’ late years of renewed prime ministerial office, political polarisation and exile in Paris.
TWO OXEN AHEAD This revealing study of farming practices in societies around the Mediterranean draws out the valuable contribution that knowledge of recent practices can make to our understanding of husbandry in prehistoric and Greco-Roman times. It reflects increased academic interest in the formative influence of farming regimes on the societies they were designed to feed. The author’s intensive research took him to farming communities around the Mediterranean, where he recorded observational and interview data on differing farming strategies and practices, many of which can be traced back to classical antiquity or earlier. The book documents these variables, through the annual chaîne opératoire (from ploughing and sowing to harvesting and threshing), interannual schemes of crop rotation and husbandry, and the generational cycle of household development. It traces the interdependence of these successive stages and explores how cultural tradition, ecological conditions, and access to resources shape variability in husbandry practice. Each chapter identifies ways in which heuristic use of data on recent farming can shed light on ancient practices and societies.
A new look at the leadership of Greek ship owners in world shipping in the second half of the twentieth century. This book examines the fundamental factors of the dynamism of Greek entrepreneurship in family businesses and provides evidence for the organization, management and strategies of Greek family shipping companies.
Uplifting and engaging, this story recounts the life and career of a rebellious 20th-century British artist Born into a large, musical, and bohemian family in London, the British artist John Craxton (1922–2009) has been described as a Neo-Romantic, but he called himself a “kind of Arcadian”. His early art was influenced by Blake, Palmer, Miró, and Picasso. After achieving a dream of moving to Greece, his work evolved as a personal response to Byzantine mosaics, El Greco, and the art of Greek life. This book tells his adventurous story for the first time. At turns exciting, funny, and poignant, the saga is enlivened by Craxton’s ebullient pictures. Ian Collins expands our understanding of the artist greatly—including an in-depth exploration of the storied, complicated friendship between Craxton and Lucian Freud, drawing on letters and memories that Craxton wanted to remain private until after his death.
