Minorities and the making of the nation-state in 20th century Greece

RICHARD CLOGG (ed.), Minorities in Greece—Aspects of a Plural Society (Hurst &Company, London, 2003), ISBN 1-850-65706-8 (pb), £16.95DIMITRI PENTZOPOULOS, The Balkan Exchange of Minorities and its Impact on Greece (Hurst &Company, London, 2002, 2nd edn), 300 pp., ISBN 1-850-65674-6 (pb), £20.00 Pentzopoulos' study and the volume edited by Richard Clogg deal with the common theme of minorities in Greece, yet they have very different aims, approaches and results, irrespective of the 40 years that separate the original publication of the former (1962) from the latter. Pentzopoulos presents us with a case study of the Greek–Turkish population exchange agreed with the Lausanne Treaty in 1923 as a means of dealing with the problem of minorities in the aftermath of Greece's irredentist campaign in Asia Minor in 1922. This exposition has the advantages of a historical and interdisciplinary case study, which are strengthened by the author's eloquence. It should be of great interest to scholars seeking to understand the process of Greece's formation and consolidation as a nation-state during the 20th century. The volume edited by Clogg is a collection of essays on a number of religious, ethnic and cultural minorities, whose presence undermines the widespread impression of Greece as a state that incarnates a model of national homogeneity. While it provides a general and informative overview of 10 minority groups, it has the often-encountered weaknesses of edited volumes, such as great divergence in the quality of contributions and lack of analytical cohesion.