Nearly two centuries have passed since K. O. Muller published the first "scientific" study "on the habitat, the origin and the early history of the Macedonian people". An ever growing number of publications appearing each year has rendered urgent a critical appraisal of this exuberant production, the more so that many aspects of ancient Macedonia remain controversial, if not problematic. Yet after seventy years of large-scale systematic excavations the activity of Greek archaeologists, as well as the labour of scholars from all over the world, have revealed a heretofore terra incognita and given a consistency to the people that Alexander led to the end of the known world. Now more than ever before we can tackle the "main problems" that have been contested without conclusion: Where exactly was Macedonia? Which were its limits? Where did the Macedonians come from? What language did they speak? What cults did they practice? Did they believe in an afterlife? What political and social institutions did they have? What was Alexander's role in his father's death? What were his aims? To what extent can we trust ancient historians? Alexander failed to provide a stable successor to the Achaemenid multiethnic empire, and the sands of Egypt have effaced even the traces of his last abode, yet if he returned to life, he could still boast in the words of Cavafy, a modern Alexandrian in every sense, "a new Hellenic world, a great one, came to be ... with the extended dominions, with the various attempts at judicious adaptations. And the Greek koine language all the way to outer Bactria we carried it, to the peoples of India".

While many of the heroes of Greek literature of the pre and post-war era are caught up in the guiding national narrative and its myths, Dimitri is a person with more than one home. His story is a story of the Greek diaspora, one of curiosity, awakening, humorous observation, and the broadening of horizons. The second volume in Miltiades Hatzopoulos' trilogy has Dimitri arriving in Paris in 1956, a stranger in a foreign land, bewildered and bemused, but soon swept up in the reality of a country he has so far learned about only through his reading of French medieval literature. A sophisticated French family welcome him into their confusingly shabby upper-class home, where he lodges together with a colourful cast of characters on the sixth floor. Now permanently exiled from Cyprus, Dimitri is committed to his adoptive country. Grateful for the opportunities that the French Republic has so generously bestowed upon him, he becomes a French citizen and volunteers for military service just as the political unrest of the 60s hits the streets of Paris. In counterpoint to his own inner turmoil, the French colonial war in Algeria, the Arab-Israeli War and the military coup in Greece all take place while he is in France, and meanwhile the tragedy of Cyprus continues to unfold. Dimitri's humorous observation of life in the army is one of the many glories of this book, along with the fine descriptions of character, Paris and the provinces, the niceties of French society, the complexity of personal relations, and a vivid introduction to the politics of the time from a first-hand perspective. Historically enlightening and vivid, the book takes us along Dimitri's own personal journey, which is defined and dictated by the events going on around him, as he grapples with a world that sweeps him along, amused, confused and enchanted.

The touching story of a teenager who struggles with the eternal problems of adolescence, Betwixt & Between is a coming-of-age novel set in a politically divided country. While the era of British colonialism in Cyprus is coming to a violent end, Dimitri tries to come to terms with the consequences of the political turmoil on his own life. Strengthened by his passion for medieval poetry and his love for the history of his island, he sets out to balance the Cypriot and English elements in his daily life. His quest for answers is complicated by romantic love for his British friend Anne and his physical attraction to his father's maid Phrossou. Balancing between different identities, religions and communities, his personal search becomes symbolic of his country's turbulent political situation. A nostalgic story about family, love and friendship, Betwixt & Between is a powerful novel about the psychology of an adolescent torn between different worlds, and about the complexities of life and love in the social and historical mosaic of 1950's colonial Cyprus. It is a beautifully-observed, historically-informed novel by the celebrated Greek historian and novelist.