With three exceptions (Hamilakis 2007, Güthenke 2008, Van Steen 2010) Re-imagining the Past is unique in its exclusive focus on modern Greece among the almost 100 published volumes in the Classical Presences series from Oxford University Press. This is rather illustrative of how the classical heritage has been adopted by Western culture such that its presence seems to be more remarked upon in all other parts of the world but Greece where it – geographically and linguistically – originates. This is, of course, a false picture, since nowhere in the world has the classical heritage had such a profound influence upon a society's self-definition as in Greece; equally profound through its presence as its absence. There are two obvious reasons for the lack of volumes on classical presences in Greece. One is the argument for Greece's crypto-colonial status, in which modern Greece has never been recognized as – and has never considered itself – a natural part of the West. The other is that classical presences in Greek cultural production are, apart from the visual arts, in Greek, a language that paradoxically enough is not known by the majority of classical Greek scholars. The volume addresses both these issues and one hoped-for effect of this important work is that many more classical scholars will become convinced of what is to be gained from a deeper knowledge of modern Greece, its history and language. I would go as far as to suggest that it should be compulsory reading in classics courses.

The volume's subtitle, Antiquity and Modern Greek Culture, refers, as David Ricks points out in his chapter, primarily to Greek antiquity. Ricks’ chapter is the only one out of 19 that examines reception of Roman antiquity, namely the legacy of Lucretius in early twentieth century Greek poetry. Ricks’ chapter deserves to be singled out for its meta-textual references to the volume as a whole; even suggesting that it represents an anti-linguistic turn, since only one chapter other than Ricks’ own concerns translation, ‘the most obvious way of appropriating past literature’(256).

With few exceptions, the contributions break new ground in approaches to classical reception in modern Greek culture, avoiding the better-known examples of uses of antiquity, such as Cavafy's poetry. One chapter refers to the obvious example of Seferis but in the context of his kinship with Seamus Heaney, while two chapters bring to light hitherto overlooked aspects of Ritsos’ use of ancient mythology. Other chapters direct attention to little-known aspects of Kazantzakis, Karagatsis, Palamas, and Karyotakis. However, what is refreshing about this volume is that a number of chapters go beyond literary reception to address uses of antiquity in identity politics, propaganda, and material culture. There is a fine balance of chapters on the one hand addressing processes of developing identities in dialogue with the Ancients from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, and on the other focusing on twentieth century literature, cultural practices, and political discourses. The volume is divided into five thematic sections, with a chronological progression in each, giving the newcomer to the field a broad introduction to key themes and periods in Greek history but from new angles, and also ensuring a stimulating experience for readers with background knowledge of Greece. That said, I would have liked to see more than just one chapter on how antiquity is re-imagined in Greece after the end of the Cold War. With the end of the Cold War, Greece's symbolism for the West faded, and it would be worthwhile to study the reception of antiquity in the new geo-political context.

In his introduction, Dimitris Tziovas presents the book's project as a liberating one, where re-imagining the past involves the decolonizing of the classical ideal by ‘charting the transition in the study of the reception of antiquity in modern Greek culture from the emphasis on the continuity of the past to the recognition of its diversity’ (5) and often from a comparative perspective. The volume humbly advocates for ‘treating the study of modern Greek language and literature as a serious academic discipline’ (24), and, as will be evident from the summary below, its papers epitomize both diversity and scholarly excellence.

The three chapters of Part 1 address the legacy of antiquity in the field of tension between Greece and Europe. Anastasia Stouraiti confronts the issue of agency in early archaeological knowledge by directing attention to Greek collectors under Venetian rule, thereby dispelling the orientalist myth about Greeks as insignificant players on the early archeological scene. Roderick Beaton unfolds the European dilemma of revival of the Greek ideal at the time of the Greek Revolution through the eyes of Shelley; and Alexandra Lianeri shows how translations of Greek tragedies into modern Greek from one point of view followed European trends in a typical ‘catching up’ mode and from another proposed an original Greek interpretation of modernity.

Part 2 focuses on perceptions of Hellenisms in institutions and politics. These four chapters deal with Greek self-designations in Late Byzantine and Ottoman times (Tassos Kaplanis); Neofytos Doukas’ linguistic archaism (Peter Mackridge); the uses of antiquity in the identity politics of the University of Athens over a hundred years (Vangelis Karamanolakis), and the changing conceptions of ethnikofrosyni in the intellectual and political discourses of the Post-Civil War period (Alexander Kazamias).

The chapters in Part 3 deal with material culture and performances of the past. Dimitris Plantzos examines the significance of ‘archeologists’ in Karkavitsas’, Venezis’ and Angelopoulos’ work, where official archaeology is rejected as an agent of modernity while popular archaeologists thrive as mediators of an unadulterated national self; Eleana Yalouri addresses the idea of the ‘spirit of antiquity’ and its material manifestations through a historical overview and a contemporary case study of the commodification of the ‘spirit of the Olympics’; Katerina Zacharia draws attention to the selective images of Greek antiquity projected by the Metaxas regime in tourism photography; and Eleni Papazoglou discusses the staging and reception of classical tragedies during the revival of ancient drama in the early twentieth century.

The six chapters in Part 4 examine literary, mostly poetic, receptions of antiquity. Gonda Van Steen revisits an overlooked fifteenth-century lament for the fall of Athens (1456) with references to Aeschylus’ The Persians and provides a thorough philological analysis and translation of the poem; this is followed by David Ricks’ chapter on the Lucretian legacy in Theotokis, Palamas, and Karyotakis. Gunnar De Boel presents two obscure novels by Kazantzakis and Karagatsis where Dorians play a prominent role as symbols of invaders but also possible saviours from an imported western culture. Two chapters refreshingly take up classical reception in Ritsos’ poetry. From the perspective of Marxist dialectics Marinos Pourgouris argues that myth occupies a dialectical function in Ritsos’ dramatic monologues The Fourth Dimension (1972), showing the poet's use of the past as a reminder of the limitations of human fate. Dimitris Tziovas also approaches Ritsos’ poetry from an existential rather than political perspective. His chapter provides a detailed account of the reception of Sophocles’ drama Philoctetes in the West, which serves as background to an analysis of Ritsos’ poem Philoctetes (written 1963–65) that shows how Ritsos, a representative of a ‘minor’ and ‘peripheral’ literature, has much to contribute to the interpretation of the myth. Ritsos sets up Neoptolemus as the poem's central character and Tziovas points out the centrality of the young man's losses and loneliness as well as his dilemmas between heroism and friendship, war and peace, and the relationship with the older generation to which Philoctetes belongs. Furthermore, Tziovas highlights aspects of a less acknowledged side of Ritsos’ poetry, namely homoeroticism. As always, Tziovas has an eye for broader trends in Greek literature and Modern Greek Studies. Thus he includes his own close reading of Ritsos in a general trend among literary scholars to move away from ethnocentric or political readings of twentieth century Greek poets and instead explore e.g. Palamas’ lyricism, Anagnostakis’ existentialism, and the non-political aspects of Leivaditis. Finally, Rowena Fowler examines Heaney's concept of ‘poetry as redress’ in a parallel reading of Seferis’ and Heaney's uses of nekyia and their re-appropriations of Plato's underworld.

In the fifth part of the volume, Lorna Hardwick explores the ways in which Modern Greek studies and classical reception studies can be mutually illuminating. Hardwick suggests that the disciplines of classics may learn from the self-scrutiny with which Modern Greek studies has confronted the concept of exceptionality. The volume as such may not address this central concern but the collection of papers is in itself a proof of the fruitful encounter between the scholarly disciplines of classics and Modern Greek studies.

From the above it should be obvious that this is a rich and varied volume that includes excellent and innovative work from a balanced group of established and young, male and female scholars, and I warmly recommend it to anyone with an interest in Greek history and the dilemmas of identity, ownership and legacy related to national narratives in general, Europe's Greek legacy, and the modern Greek experience.