Cover; Contents; Front Matter; Title Page; Publisher Information; Introduction; Athens; Contours; Founding Myths; A Long Decline; The New Athens; The Urban Map; The Ancient City; Dark Days; Athens Reborn; Modern Capital; Landmarks; The Meaning of the Parthenon; The Athens Trilogy; Omonia Square; Rulers and Ruled; Tyrants and Factions; Towards Independence; Imperfect Democracy; Occupation and Civil War; Left and Right; Enter the Colonels; Modern Politics; The Written Word; Modernists and Surrealists; Post-War Writing; Visual Images; Modernism and Since; Filming Athens; Modern Trends. and Athenian Theatre: a Long IntermissionThe Sound of the City; Three Great Composers; From the Summer of Love to Post-Punk Haikus; Leisure and Pleasure; Sporting Athens; Alfresco Movies and Arts Venues; Nightlife; From Astronomy to Zoology: Museums; Changing Faces; Muslim and Jewish Athens; Multiculturalism; Spending Power; Local Tastes; City of Shopping; Of Diets and Dinnerology; The Dark Side; Rich and Poor; Famine and Deprivation; Surroundings; Parks and Gardens; Piraeus; Out to the Islands; End Matter; Further Reading; Non-fiction; Fiction; Poetry; Websites.
Summary
Athens is an historical anomaly. Excavations date its first settlement to over seven thousand years ago, yet it only became the capital of Greece in 1834. During the intervening centuries it was occupied by almost every mobile culture in Europe: from its earliest likely settlers, tribes from what is now Albania, to Nazi forces during the second World War, and in between by successive waves of Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Slavs, Goths, Venetians, French, Catalans, Turks, Italians, Bulgarian ...
