Andreas Papandreou: The Making of a Greek Democrat and Political Maverick

Stan Draenos

Jun 2012 · Bloomsbury Publishing

About this ebook

Greece in the 1960s produced one of Europe's arguably most controversial politicians of the post-war era. The contrarian politics of Andreas Papandreou grew out of his conflict laden re-engagement with Greece in the 1960s. Returning to Athens after 20 years in the US where he had been a rising member of the American liberal establishment, Papandreou forged a social reform-oriented, nationalist politics in Greece that ultimately put him at odds with the US foreign policy establishment and made him the primary target of a pro-American military coup in 1967. Venerated by his admirers and despised by his detractors with equal passion, the Harvard-educated Papandreou left in his wake no clear-cut answer to the question of who he was and what he stood for. Andreas Papandreou chronicles the events, struggles and ideas that defined the man's dramatic, intrigue-filled transformation from Kennedy-era modernizer to Cold War maverick. In the process the book examines the explosive interplay of character and circumstance that generated Papandreou's contentious, but powerfully consequential politics.

About the author

Stan Draenos holds a PhD in Political Science from York University in Toronto. A political analyst, historian and consultant, his articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Historical Review, Salmagundi, Ta Nea and the Los Angeles Times. He served for several years as Historian at the Andreas Papandreou Foundation and has been a Contributing Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, DC and a Research Fellow at Princeton University, as well as a guest lecturer at the University of Michigan, City University of New York, the Greek National Research Foundation and the University of Macedonia.