Greece and the Inter-War Economic Crisis

The great depression of the inter-war years was the most profound shock ever to strike the world economy, and is widely held to have led directly to the collapse of parliamentary democracy in many countries. This study of Greece in the inter-war period, however, demonstrates that there was no simple correlation between economic and political crisis. Drawing on detailed statistical research, Mazower explores how an underdeveloped country like Greece was able to recover so quickly from the economic crisis. He examines the complex processes involved, showing how recovery, like crisis, threatened prevailing notions of the relationship between state and society, and undermined ruling elites. He also shows how the rapid economic recovery of the Greeks after 1932 was succeeded in 1936 by the establishment of the Metaxas dictatorship.