Timothy Boatswain and Colin Nicolson   A Traveller's History of Greece (Windrush Press; Interlink). Dated (coverage ceases in early 1990s) but well-written overview of the important Greek periods and personalities.

 

David Brewer   The Flame of Freedom: The Greek War of Independence 1821-1833 (John Murray, UK). A newish history with just a few black-and-white illustrations.

Richard Clogg   A Concise History of Greece (Cambridge UP). A remarkably clear and well-illustrated account of Greece, from the decline of Byzantium to 1992, with the emphasis on recent decades; there are numerous maps and lengthy feature captions to the artwork.

Douglas Dakin   The Unification of Greece, 1770-1923 (Ernest Benn; St Martin's, both o/p). A benchmark account of the foundation of the Greek state and the struggle to extend its boundaries.

Oriana Falacci   A Man (Arrow; Pocket Books, o/p). A gripping account of the junta years, relating the author's involvement with Alekos Panagoulis, the army officer who attempted to assassinate Colonel Papadopoulos in 1968. Issued ostensibly as a "novel" in response to threats by those who were implicated in Panagoulis's own murder in 1975.

George Kassimeris   Europe's Last Red Terrorists: The Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17N) (C. Hurst & Co, UK). The latest word on Europe's most elusive urban terror group, though when it comes to unravelling the mystery of just who they are, Kassimeris comes little closer than anyone else.

H.A. Lidderdale , trs and ed The Memoirs of General Makriyannis, 1797-1864 (Oxford UP, o/p). The "Peasant General", one of the few honest and self-sacrificing protagonists of the Greek uprising, taught himself to write at age 32 to set down this apologia of his conduct, in vivid demotic Greek. It's heartbreaking in its portrayal of the incipient schisms, linguistic and otherwise, that tore the country apart until recently.

Michael Llewellyn Smith   Ionian Vision, Greece in Asia Minor, 1919-22 (C. Hurst; University of Michigan). A standard work, by the former UK ambassador to Greece, on the disastrous Anatolian campaign, which led to the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey. His account evinces considerable sympathy for the post-1920 royalist government pursuing an unwanted, inherited war they know is unwinnable.

Yiannis Roubatis   Tangled Webs: The US in Greece 1947-67 (Pella Publishing, US). Chronicles growing American involvement in Greece during the lead-up to the military coup.

Peter Varoulakis   The Greek War of Independence (Hellenic International Press). A nice counterweight to the Brewer work, with lots of colour reproductions of famous scenes, with far less text.

C.M. Woodhouse   Modern Greece, A Short History (Faber & Faber). Woodhouse was active in the Greek Resistance during World War II.Writing from a more right-wing perspective than Clogg, this history (from the foundation of Constantinople in 324 to the 1980s), is briefer and a bit drier, but scrupulous with facts. The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels (Granada, o/p; Watts) recounts the (horror) story of the dictatorship.