Eleftherios Venezelos

The conflict between Greece and Turkey began the tension between the two states that has continued for the past 90 years and is most clearly seen in the dispute over the divided island of Cyprus. The Paris Peace Conferences were where the modern Near East, with all its problems of competing nationalisms and ethnic divisions, was created, and Venizelos’s Greece was the key player in this process.

ANDREW DALBY is a historian and linguist whose work has appeared in several languages. His writings on Greek history and literature include Rediscovering Homer (2006), Flavours of Byzantium (2003) and the acclaimed Siren Feasts: a history of food and gastronomy in Greece (1996), which won a Runciman Award.

Other books in The Makers of the Modern World series include Prince Charoon et al: South-East Asia.