Cold War Social Science: Transnational Entanglements by Mark Solovey and Christian Dayé, eds.

Abstract

divided the junta’s leadership and veered sharply toward action after Brigadier Dimitrios Ioannides overthrew Papadopoulos in the wake of the crushing of the Polytechnic student uprising in November 1973. When the ultranationalists in the junta plotted a coup for the overthrow of Archbishop Makarios and possible enosis on 15 July 1974, events spiraled out of their control. Turkey invaded the island five days later, the Greek dictatorship collapsed, and Greeks enthusiastically welcomed the restoration of civilian government on 23 July. The U.S. government’s failure to act during the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus inflamed Greek public opinion against Washington for well over a decade. In the concluding chapter the coeditors succinctly highlight the volume’s major contributions and then comment on the shortand longer-term legacies of the authoritarian interlude. Greece left its illiberal period behind and transitioned to a functioning democracy that qualified it for entry into the European Economic Community in 1981. Yet relations with NATO and the United States over the Cyprus imbroglio and Turkey’s challenges to Greek sovereignty in the Aegean remained strained. Overall, the Anastasakis-Lagos volume is a welcome addition to existing scholarship on this dark interlude in Greece’s history. Although all edited volumes face limits and constraints, a more comprehensive profile of the junta could have been constructed with added attention placed on the regime’s attempts to restructure institutions (e.g., elections, plebiscites, constitutions), on the cruelty of the secret police and on the impact of domestic and international resistance organizations.