Genres of Recollection brings to life the social and textual worlds in which the representation of contemporary Greek historical experience has been passionately debated. Building on contemporary research in history and anthropology concerning the social production of the past, this study considers how people who admit they are "not historians"--from a housewife to an award-winning novelist, a farmer to an aristocratic lady of leisure--mediate their personal, family and community histories by compiling archives and writing diverse genres of historical texts. "Re-collecting" the recent Greek past of labor migration, refugee flight, civil war and urbanization is shown to powerfully shape contemporary social relations and political culture, but also to open a captivating field for imagining redemptive futures.

Genres of Recollection brings to life the social and textual worlds in which the representation of contemporary Greek historical experience has been passionately debated. Building on contemporary research in history and anthropology concerning the social production of the past, this study considers how people who admit they are "not historians"--from a housewife to an award-winning novelist, a farmer to an aristocratic lady of leisure--mediate their personal, family and community histories by compiling archives and writing diverse genres of historical texts. "Re-collecting" the recent Greek past of labor migration, refugee flight, civil war and urbanization is shown to powerfully shape contemporary social relations and political culture, but also to open a captivating field for imagining redemptive futures.