The Balkan Prospect: Identity, Culture, and Politics in Greece after 1989 [Hardcover]

Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, the borders hitherto separating Greek culture and society from its contiguous Balkan polities came down, and Greeks had to reorient themselves toward their immediate neighbors and redefine their place within Europe and the new, more fluid global order. Projecting the political foresight and mustering the modernization policies to succeed in such an undertaking turned out to be no small feat, especially as the regional conflicts that had lain dormant during the Cold War were revived. Synthesizing the cultural, political, and historical into a sophisticated, interdisciplinary analysis, this innovative study untangles the prolonged 'historical moment' in which Greece and Europe were effectively held hostage to events in the Balkans - just at the time when both hoped to serve as the region's welcoming hosts.An examination of the fall of the Iron Curtain and its significance from the perspective of Greece.
Introduction. The Balkan Prospect in the New Europe
1. This Is the Balkans, This Is No Fun and Games
2. Names, Differences
3. Repetition, Agency
4. Bridges, Metaphors
5. Limits, Co-Existence
6. Migrations, Prospects
7. Back to the Balkans

Calotychos's book is more than a significant contribution to the field of Greek and Balkan studies. It is an homage to the cultural legacy left by a pleiad of modern creators, despite or due to their tribulations in the land of 'no fun and games.' - American Hellenic Institute
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Given the current social situation in Greece and the Balkans, the destructive consequences of globalization and neoliberal ideology, sooner or later Hellenic studies will have to face the growing gap between social reality and the Greek cultural canon, and at that point Calotychos's work and the work of this group will emerge as the dominant one. - Journal of Modernl³'