“Who are we?” A quest for Greek identity
Who are we? The geopolitics of Greek identity, published by Kerkyra Publications-economia Publishing in 2017, is a book by George Prevelakis, professor emeritus at Sorbonne, who has taught at Sciences Po, Johns Hopkins, Tufts and LSE and whose interests have ranged all the way from urban planning to geopolitics to the study of diasporas, tries to deliver a number of answers to the seminal question that has hunted Greece and Greeks: “Who are we?”.
As the translator of this book from its original Greek language version – J.C.B. Petropoulos, of the Harvard U. Center for Hellenic Studies introduces it, to study Who Greeks are strickes at the heart of European identity – peculiar Westerners, “truants” of the West, “constituent elements of the West and the property of humankind”.
Greece in the intersection of contradictory worlds
When trying to situate Greek identity in one of the most important crossroads of Greek history – the Revolution of 1821, which has led to the creation of the modern Greek state – G. Prevelakis refers notionally to the intersection of East and West, but also to the contradictory elements carried by both. To both point out such contradictory dimensions and to build them is quite important.
