The Full Catastrophe: Travels Among the New Greek Ruins

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		The Full Catastrophe: Travels Among the New Greek Ruins
		The Full Catastrophe: Travels Among the New Greek Ruins

A transporting, good-humored, and revealing account of Greece’s dire troubles, reported from the mountain villages, idyllic islands, and hardscrabble streets that define the country today

In recent years, small Greece, often associated with ancient philosophers and marble ruins, whitewashed villages and cerulean seas, has been at the center of a debt crisis that has sown economic and social ruin, spurred panic in international markets, and tested Europe’s decades-old project of forging a closer union  .

In The Full Catastrophe, James Angelos makes sense of contrasting images of Greece, a nation both romanticized for its classical past and castigated for its dysfunctional present. With vivid character-driven narratives and engaging reporting that offers an immersive sense of place, he brings to life some of the causes of the country’s financial collapse, and examines the changes, some hopeful and others deeply worrisome, emerging in its aftermath. A small rebellion against tax authorities breaks out on a normally serene Aegean island. A mayor from a bucolic, northern Greek village is gunned down by the municipal treasurer. An aging, leftist hero of the Second World War fights to win compensation from Germany for the wartime occupation. A once marginal group of neo-Nazis rises to political prominence out of a ramshackle Athens neighborhood.

The Full Catastrophe goes beyond the transient coverage in the daily headlines to deliver an enduring and absorbing portrait of modern Greece.

网友对The Full Catastrophe: Travels Among the New Greek Ruins的评论

As reviewer D. Alcotton June 22, 2016 says "Started off strong and informative, then took a hard turn left". The writer Angelos is an Albanian Greek of apparently leftist sympathy married to a German wife. It seems his narrative, especially in the second half, is colored by this experience (BTW, I've lived in Greece and share most of Angelos' prejudices, but the second half of his book tars the first half, which is more objective. The second half of his book explains, blow by blow, the rise of the far-right "Golden Dawn" party, which I did not care to read. Angelos also does not give much thought to debt relief (for every bad debtor who wasted money, there's a bad creditor who gave the money in the first place). Anecdotes about waste are fun to read however, but Angelos has a plodding writing style where he tries to pack too much information into each paragraph, and tries to color the paragraphs with subjective and likely inaccurate summaries of the state of mind of the people he meets. Book could have been shorter.

All in all, just a decent book but likely of interest only to people who have, like I have, lived in Greece and can identify the places visited. Otherwise it's likely "Greek to you" and a bit of a jumbled mess.

This book gives an interesting set of viewpoints into the ongoing Greek "tragedy". I bought the book because I was strongly against the Greek bailouts; A lot of people rang up huge debts and now didn't want to pay their creditors. Greece needed to leave the Euro. I felt going in that the author, being a Greek-American and having spent copious time in Greece, would provide counterpoints to my initial hostility towards Greece.

I came away with the same conclusion I had entered with: Greece needed to leave the Euro. However, my reasons became more nuanced than simple creditor/debtor issues. They needed to leave, not just do to lack of payback of debts. They needed time, as a people and as a country, to learn to live without the constant oversight (or overbearing) of others. Though painful I think this will forge a country worthy of its out-sized historical place in western civilization.

Through the author's eyes, I saw a country that had its share of self-delusions (we all do) and behaviors born of their history over the past hundreds of years. The current tax dodging and corruption are a product of nearly constant outsider control of their governments. The author does a great job of demonstrating the the current nature of Greece without either denigrating Greeks or absolving them of guilt for the current situation. You get to see the viewpoints of government officials, average citizens, as well as high level political fights being waged for the future direction of the country.

While an fascinating book to read, at times it felt a just a bit disjointed. The jumps in areas covered could be jarring. Given the complexity of what Mr. Angelos was trying to cover I doubt I could have done better.

An entertaining read, with lots of seamy detail. However I had hoped to see some discussion of the Greek Orthodox Church and the shipping magnates. There is virtually none. Much too much about Golden Dawn. For the church, I recommend http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/04/greece-orthodox-church-economic-crisis. Greece faces many tough choices before it enters the 20th century, let alone the 21rst. the Greeks have to solve these problems themselves. This book skirts the big issues.

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