A review by dzhoww
The Classical Debt: Greek Antiquity in an Era of Austerity by Johanna Hanink

5.0

Loved this so much. A bop and a half. The book deconstructs the West's cultural debt to ancient Athens, a retroactive debt which both Western and Greek interests cobbled together from whitewashed fantasies. It ends by compounding this debt upon Greece's government debt, suggesting that the West's punitive attitudes around austerity are colored by a longer tradition of punishing Greece for not living up to apocryphal standards. Also robust discussions re: constructing national identity, Orientalism, refugee crisis, neoliberalism/liberalism...