Xenocracy: State, Class, and Colonialism in the Ionian Islands, 1815-1864

Sakis Gekas

Berghahn Books, Dec 1, 2016 - History - 380 pages

Of the many European territorial reconfigurations that followed the wars of the early nineteenth century, the Ionian State remains among the least understood. Xenocracy offers a much-needed account of the region during its half-century as a Protectorate of Great Britain—a period that embodied all of the contradictions of British colonialism. A middle class of merchants, lawyers and state officials embraced and promoted a liberal modernization project. Yet despite the improvements experienced by many Ionians, the deterioration of state finances led to divisions along class lines and presented a significant threat to social stability. As author Sakis Gekas shows, the ordeal engendered dependency upon and ambivalence toward Western Europe, anticipating the “neocolonial” condition with which the Greek nation struggles even today.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• Chapter 1 The First Greek State and the Origins of Colonial Governmentality: 23
• Chapter 2 Building the Colonial State: 51
• Chapter 3 Law Colonialism and State Formation: 79
• Chapter 4 Colonial Knowledge and the Making of Ionian Governmentality: 101

About the author

Sakis Gekas is an Associate Professor and the Hellenic Heritage Foundation Chair in Modern Greek History at York University, Toronto. He has written on the Ionian Islands under British rule, on merchants and ports in the Mediterranean, and the economic history of nineteenth-century Greece.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Xenocracy: State, Class, and Colonialism in the Ionian Islands, 1815-1864
• Author: Sakis Gekas
• Publisher: Berghahn Books, 2016
• ISBN: 1785332627, 9781785332623
• Length: 380 pages
• Subjects: History / Europe / Greece; Political Science / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism