After the War Was Over

Rating:
Summary: History on the ground
Review: Mazower's previous book on Greece in the 1940s was outstanding for providing a clear picture of life "on the ground" in occupied Greece. Several of the essays in this new book similarly provide a texture of life during the civil war, while others provide a texture of Greek life after the insurrection ended. I don't see this as a book favoring either the left or right (a formulation that would mean little now anyway), but as showing the difficult decisions that ordinary Greeks had to make at that time. If you are tired of books about the Greek civil war that revolve around the actions of the King, Churchill, Truman and Stalin, this book is a must.

Rating:
Summary: Crimes of "Greeks" against Greeks.
Review: This book simply includes a few "leftist" accounts of what happened after the war was over. That is, about the naive Greeks putting into action new things they learned during the war, and, specifically, what the British Secret Operations Executive trained them to do: "set Greece ablaze, by fire an Axle." But, the book is worth having for the following simple reason: to see how a contemporary "historian" translates the name E.L.A.S. E.L.A.S. was the Communist militant organization that the S.O.E. financed in order to commit crimes against the German solders. Since the E.L.A.S. militants were cowards and feared the Germans, they concentrated their criminal efforts on fellow Greeks. No Greek can make any sense out of the British policy towards them because it was not meant to make sense. On page 4 of this book, the "historian" author, Mazower, translates E.L.A.S., (Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos) as Greek People's Liberation Army. How about, National Socialist Liberation Army? But, what do the words "national" and "liberation" have to do with Marxism? Mazower cannot answer this; it is a question for real historians and those who really know what is behind British policy.