Overview

During the 1970s, left-wing youth militancy in Greece intensified, especially after the collapse of the military dictatorship in 1974. This is the first study of the impact of that political activism on the leisure pursuits and sexual behavior of Greek youth, analyzing the cultural politics of left-wing organizations alongside the actual practices of their members. Through an examination of Maoists, Socialists, Euro-Communists, and pro-Soviet groups, it demonstrates that left-wing youth in Greece collaborated closely with comrades from both Western and Eastern European countries in developing their political stances. Moreover, young left-wingers in Greece appropriated American cultural products while simultaneously modeling some of their leisure and sexual practices on Soviet society. Still, despite being heavily influenced by cultures outside Greece, left-wing youth played a major role in the reinvention of a Greek popular tradition. This book critically interrogates the notion of sexual revolution by shedding light on the contradictory sexual transformations in Greece to which young left-wingers contributed.

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9781789200744

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Reviews

This excellent study is partially based on interviews and a thorough examination of student publications..Highly Recommended. * Choice The author offers a very unconventional insight into the complex power struggles over and among the Greek youth. He masterfully switches between the institutional perspective of the former youth organizations, speaking through an extensive body of written sources, and the perspectives of their formerly young members, voiced through over 50 oral testimonies, recorded in Athens and Thessaloniki. * Slavic Review All in all, Papadogiannis' book comes to enrich the scarce Greek historiography on the 1970s...Reaching beyond the Greek case study, finally, Papadogiannis' well-researched and thought-provoking book will become, I believe, an indispensable companion to anyone interested in post-authoritarian youth cultures in contemporary Europe. * Historein Overall, this book is written in a lively and scrupulous way. The distinctions between diverse youth groups are careful and bring to the fore the fragmentation of this broad category of the left-wing youth. Papadogiannis is also very sensitive to methodological issues, such as the inevitable retrospective element of interviews and the fact that interviewees may be affected by their current political affiliation. * Journal of Modern Greek Studies ...this book tells the background story of the Greece that is coming now to its end. For this reason, it is an indispensable work for any student of Modern Greek history. * Labor History ...beyond the existence of a rich material, what makes this monograph important is the author's theoretical and analytical options... Papadogiannis manages to capture a complex narrative for the period from 1974 until today. It is a narrative that emphasizes how the subjects themselves , when confronted with political challenges of their time, dealt with the political through their daily personal choices. * Chronos The detailed description of the cultural politics carried out by the different groups provides important information on the specificities of the radical youth in Greece during the transition...The work is likely to be of interest to a wide range of readers exploring the area of processes of democratization, social movements, the long-sixties, and cultural and gender studies. * Democratization Impressively researched, referenced, and documented, [this book] is a truly exceptional and deftly presented work of seminal scholarship and very highly recommended for academic library reference collections and Contemporary Greek Political & Social Issues supplemental studies reading lists. * Midwest Book Review Militant Around the Clock? makes several important contributions to the literature on European leftist youth culture. Papadogiannis is particularly successful in disentangling the engagement with American/foreign ideas and products from Americanization. Although scholars often problematically treat the two ideas as synonymous, Papadogiannis deftly illustrates the Greek Left's rejection of American models in favor of Soviet or local, traditional cultural templates...[and] contributes an analysis of cultural politics that allows us to see the global context of Greek youth cultural politics without undercutting the significance of local histories and memories. * CritCom Papadogiannis offers an impressive panorama of radicalized youth cultures of the Left in post-authoritarian Greece. He manages to convey both the organizational outlook of this dense microcosm and the lived experience of the people at the time, historicizing masterfully this transitional moment in which young 'subjects in motion' acted as a metaphor for change... the book uncovers the social, cultural, and political layers behind the resilience of collective action in post-1974 Greece. * Kostis Kornetis, New York University An original, well-researched book that provides a fresh perspective on youth and leisure in contemporary history by looking at Greece in the 1970s. * Frank Trentmann, Birkbeck College, University of London

This excellent study is partially based on interviews and a thorough examination of student publications..Highly Recommended. Choice

Author Information

Nikolaos Papadogiannis is a Lecturer in Modern History at Bangor University, Wales, and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He obtained his Ph.D. in History from the University of Cambridge in 2010, and has published articles in international journals such as European History Quarterly, Contemporary European History, Journal of Contemporary History, and the Journal of Modern Greek Studies.

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