Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990 [Paperback]

Anastasia N. Karakasidou (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0226424944 | ISBN-13: 978-0226424941 | Edition: First Edition

Deftly combining archival sources with evocative life histories, Anastasia Karakasidou brings welcome clarity to the contentious debate over ethnic identities and nationalist ideologies in Greek Macedonia. Her vivid and detailed account demonstrates that contrary to official rhetoric, the current people of Greek Macedonia ultimately derive from profoundly diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Throughout the last century, a succession of regional and world conflicts, economic migrations, and shifting state formations has engendered an intricate pattern of population movements and refugee resettlements across the region. Unraveling the complex social, political, and economic processes through which these disparate peoples have become culturally amalgamated within an overarchingly Greek national identity, this book provides an important corrective to the Macedonian picture and an insightful analysis of the often volatile conjunction of ethnicities and nationalisms in the twentieth century.

"Combining the thoughtful use of theory with a vivid historical ethnography, this is an important, courageous, and pioneering work which opens up the whole issue of nation-building in northern Greece."—Mark Mazower, University of Sussex

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

One rarely encounters a scholarly book as disturbing as this provocative work, a study of ethnicity in the Greek province of Macedonia. It is so controversial that Cambridge University Press, fearing for the safety of its staff in Greece, refused to publish it. Having spent some time with villagers of the region, Karakasidou (anthropology, Queens Coll., CUNY) maintains that Macedonia is not exclusively Greek, as nationalists claim, but is instead a multiethnic, multicultural region experiencing the political and religious upheavals engulfing the rest of the Balkans. Karakasidou's obsession with the truth has brought her death threats, apparently from outraged Greeks. Her powerfully written book is a resounding statement of human courage, reminding readers that there is no substitute for honesty and critical thought. This superb book is highly recommended for all large social science collections.?John Xanthopoulos, Art Inst. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 358 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; First Edition edition (October 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226424944
• ISBN-13: 978-0226424941
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #815,816 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #53 in Books > History > Europe > Macedonia

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful but unnecessarily polemical, November 10, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990 (Paperback)

Dr. Karakasidou's revised doctoral dissertation draws its strengths from the original, in-depth research she did in situ for her dissertation, and its weaknesses from her consequent participation in politically charged debates on modern Greek nation-genesis and transformation. As a case-study in historical sociology/anthropology, this book is competently executed, percipient, well-researched, and skillfully argued. Karakasidou deftly combines multiple social-scientific methodologies and sources of data to describe and analyze the interplay between economic changes (in the structure of possession/property relations in Greek Macedonia), social/demographic changes (voluntary and involuntary population transfers, emigration, and war), and political changes (the establishment and development of an increasingly modern and 'scientific' modern Greek state authority over erstwhile Ottoman Macedonian territories and populations) with the development and evolution of modern ethno-national and civic-national Greek identities. On the other hand, Karakasidou is theoretically weak and her arguments at best tenuous when it comes to describing and analyzing the transition from pre-modern identities to modern regional, ethno-national and civic-national identities. She is clearly biased against the modern Greek state and modern Greek historical and social-scientific scholarship. This extends even to clear mis-representations of the works of Greek scholars, and to patently one-sided and unscholarly treatments of modern Greek nationalism and nationism, and related modern Greek state policies. Finally, there are far too many self-references in this book, to pieces penned by the author, the level of scholarship of which is much inferior to that evident in this particular book. Moreover, one can clearly detect a tendency to pre-emptively strike against criticism on the part of Karakasidou, in that she presents herself all too often and all too eagerly as an alleged 'prodigal daughter' of the modern Greek nation, allegedly airing too much of the latter's 'dirty laundry'. On both counts, she is both mistaken and hyperbolic. All in all, a useful, well-written, but uneven book, which, unfortunately, seeks all too often to make and sustain arguments that are unsupported by the author's actual research, or the scholarly literature she cites. The arguments and evidence of this book, those that are in fact based on and supported by Karakasidou's dissertation research, are neither controversial nor earth-shattering. They are simply good and useful social-scientific scholarship.

25 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good piece of scolarship., April 5, 2001

By 

"victormessanger" (long island city, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990 (Paperback)

This book is a work on (historical?) anthropology and in that field my qualifications are non existent: at best I am an amatuer (in the french sense). That said, I found the arguments of the book rather convincing. The book is obviously well researched and well thought out. I highly recommend it to anybody but esspecially to Greeks like myself who would like to have a look at (a part of) the history of modern Greece, more objective than the myths presented in official textbook-history writing. It is a good start. I can't refrain from commenting on the other reviews. Firstly I dont think that the author chose to participate in "politically charged debates", rather, she was drawn into them. Secondly it is unfair (not to say stupid) to criticise such a book for its limited scope, it is like criticising an encyclopaedia for having a very broad scope! Finally this is an anthropological book and it should be judged as such. To endorse or codemn (!) it based on whether it agrees or not with your "ideology" is an act that says something about the reviewer, but nothing about the book itself.

23 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Limited Scope, May 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990 (Paperback)

It was interesting how Anastasia Karakasidou paid only lip service to the nearby "dopyiaka" villages of Drymos and Melisohori when examining the "Hellenization" process of the Langadha basin and in particular Assiros. For the uninformed, this book does a great job in presenting Macedonia as a Hellenic desert, populated by Greek speaking settlers only in the last 150 years. Karakasidou's microscopic studies should have been extended a simple 5km down the road. Failure to do so means that this book falls short of presenting what it's sensationalist title sets out to do.