1506 SHORTER NOTICES November isolation would nor only have harmed Britain's commercial and financial j ingress in Spain, i also risked compromising American-European solidarity in a critical moment in the Cold Wat (p. 160). Rather than cease out the full implications of this statement, however, Dunthor uses his conclusions to launch contentious attacks on the Labour government. First, he makes the claim that British policy (which he deems insincere and manipulative) was « ‘more important factor than the legacy ofthe Spanish Civil War in inhibiting the formation of united opposition. Such a view ignores the fact tha the onus was, wholly on the Spanish opposition co persuade a sceptical British government that ic was worth supporting. Nor does i do full justice to the opposition’s remarkable capacity fr selfdestruction, ooted not only in the legacy of civil war, but also in continuing disagreement about the nature of a post-Franco Spain. Secondly, Dunthoen argues that Ernest Bevin's concept of a Western Union, which he views as a claim to an ‘ethical foreign policy’, exposes his ‘Spanish Realpolitit to a moral evaluation that i would not otherwise have incurred? (p. 167). Thisis both to mistake the nature of Bevin’s morality’ and to ‘overstate the importance of Spain. For Bevin and his colleagues a moral policy | ‘was above al one that gave priority tothe security and prosperity of Briain and ‘western Europe in a threatening post-war world. With the advent of the Cold War, the alzeady dim prospects for Spanish democracy were seen as an unfortunate bue unavoidable sacrifice towards that greater good. Kellogg College, Oxford TOM BUCHANAN After the War was Over: Reconstructing the Family, Nation, and State in Greece, 1943-1960, ed, Matk Mazower (Princeton/Oxford: Princeton U.P, 2000; pp. 312. £41) Until recently World War II seemed to have had no end. No historiographical tend, that is, Historians have been keenly debating its ‘origins’ (occasionally raking a reputation on the way) but the question of how societies faced, or attempted to face, post-war challenges remained relatively neglected. Although this is now rapidly changing, especially with regard to Tealy and France, it remains the case in Greece. Further, despite significant advances toward a more balanced understanding of the 1940s in Greece, scholarly interest has been confined mostly to ‘high politic’, and the proverbial ‘external factor. We have heard lor about those who ealked and decided, but relatively lel has been said about those who listened, and bore the brunt of decisions. Afier the War was Over isa highly competent attempt to counter that imbalance. Most of the fourteen contributors, some with asuret hand than others, focus on the human fabric of Greek society; on how men and women, but aso children who had spent ime in prison, experienced the turbulent 19405, and how they coped, a8 individuals but also as members of a wider community, with the wartime land post-war realities. Equally valuable is the attention paid to regional variation and local perspectives: Athens is cut down to size here, as there are chapters concerned with the ‘micro-histories' of small isolated communities, ‘aploring the local dimensions of nation-wide conflicts. The book covers four main, largely interconnected, themes: political justice and retribution, varieties of violence, strategies of adapration and survival, and mechanisms of EHR Now oF L Hoa ee ee2001 SHORTER NOTICES 1307 remembrance, In all these subjects the contributors break much new ground. Mark Mazower offers nuanced assessment of contrasting concepts of political justice atthe end of the wae, while Seathis Kalyas' ine case-study of the “Red. Terror’ of the Greck Communist Party shows that the frontier separating political rivalry from personal vendetta is always porous, when not totally tical. The grim predicament of Communist political prisoners, often punished as much by governments a by thei own conscience (and party) and the controversial subject of public recantation are very carefully and defly dered by Polymetis Voglis. Mando Dalianis’ pioneering research on the childien of politcal prisoners adds an important ‘domestic’ dimension to this issue, describing the painful balance they had to strike as adults between admiration for their parents’ ideological commitment, and regret for its consequences, thei traumatic childhood. Coping mechanisms and the uses of memory are analysed by Bea Lewkowicz and Riki van Boeschoten, who offer perceptive accounts of the difficult return *home’ of two shattered com- munities: the Jews of Salonica, and the inhabitants of Ziaka, a leftist village in northern Greece, who in 1948 had to sete in eastern Europe. On the whole, this is-a valuable collection of thoroughly researched essays, based on recently- opened archival collections, supplemented by incerviews and fieldwork, Itsheds ‘much light on how a deeply fragmented society tried to survive and to restore Some semblance of peace in a petiod when war, or its shadows, were never Far away. Pembroke College, Cambridge DIMITRIS LIVANIOS Wadbam: Scientist for Land and People, by L. R. Humphreys (Melbourne: Melbourne U.P, 2000: pp. 225. £18.50). ‘The stark contrast becween Australia’s vast physical extent and minute hhuman population has been a continuing obsession of its people and its politicians since European settlement began. Until the mid-twentieth cencary, extending the frontier inland was generally seen as the key to enabling the island-continent to support far greater numbers; and the fuller exploitation of its allegedly limicess agricultural potential was widely regarded asthe best recipe for social harmony and economic prosperity. Sir Samucl Wadham, professor of agriculture at the University of Melbourne from 1926 to 1957, played a leading role in puncturing these optimistic dreams and injecting hard-headed realism ino the making of Australian agricultural policy. English-born and Cambridge- educated, Wadham was thirty-five when he emigrated to take up the Chair of ‘what was in fact a one-man department. Until 1939, his influence was largely confined to his university and to the state of Victoria: and L. R. Humphreys's ‘lumsily-citled bucaffectionately-written biography paints fascinating picture of Australian academic life in those far-off days. This was an age of small faculties, minute budgets, uncertain undergraduate numbers, and litle time or money for research. Iwas alsoa world dominated by a handful ofauthoritar ambitious, arrogant, awe-inspiring professors. Wadham quickly learned how to ‘operate efficiently in this new environment, and also built up reputation asan cfective teacher and communicator. He devised a practical and relevant syllabus for his students, and enthusiastically propagated his views on farming, EHR Now ot