The 28^th MGSA SYMPOSIUM

The Edmund Keeley Book Prize for 2024

The MGSA 2024 Edmund Keeley Book Prize for an academic book dealing with modern Greece or a Hellenic theme published originally in the English language is awarded to Michalis Sotiropoulos, Liberalism after the Revolution: The Intellectual Foundations of the Greek State, c. 1830-1880 (Cambridge University Press, 2023). 

The Committee also confers an Honorable Mention to: Elizabeth Anne Davis, Artifactual: Forensic and Documentary Knowing (Durham: Duke University Press, 2023).

Michalis Sotiropoulos’s Liberalism after the Revolution: The Intellectual Foundations of the Greek State, c. 1830-1880 distinguished itself among an impressive selection of books on Greece from a wide array of disciplines. It addresses three key questions concerning state formation: “How is a new state built? To what ideas, concepts and practices do authorities turn to produce and legitimise its legal and political system? And what if the state emerged through revolution, and sought to obliterate the legacy of the empire which preceded it?” (2023, cover blurb). By focusing on the political thought of important nineteenth-century Greek legal scholars (e.g., Pavlos Kalligas, Ioannis Soutsos, Nikolaos Saripolos, and others), and, perhaps more importantly, by documenting the accuracy, depth, and subtlety of their intellectual formation, Sotiropoulos illustrates the ideological breadth, creativity, and potency of nineteenth-century Greek liberalism, as well as the way it engaged in reforms of the Greek state. Using a plethora of original sources that were produced by the jurists themselves—articles, books, pamphlets, public statements, as well as the contributions they made to parliamentary proceedings—the author offers an original perspective on this period and its broader impact. Sotiropoulos departs from the conventional narrative of Greek state formation by challenging western-centric histories of nineteenth-century liberalism to emphasize the roots of Greek liberalism in a broader, less canonical set of international currents of thought. While Greek liberals engaged with and were influenced by the arguments of their counterparts in Europe, they did not do so uncritically. Sotiropoulos shows that Greek legal thought and Greek liberalism were not regressive, underdeveloped, or byproducts of some kind of core (northern) European liberalism, but, on the contrary, quite broadly rooted in global conversations. As a result, the author maintains that the standard argument that nationalism predominated in the political thought of Greek liberals should be qualified. Greek liberals did not simply transform liberalism into a practical mode of statecraft; they also preserved its radical edge at a time when liberalism was losing its appeal elsewhere in Europe. Throughout, Sotiropoulos’s writing is exquisite. His volume is carefully crafted, thorough, fair-minded, balanced, informative, and focused; it is both highly detailed and instructively comparative. Moreover, while the volume focuses on the Greek state and a relatively small handful of actors over a defined period of time (1830-1880), Michalis Sotiropoulos masterfully weaves that story into a broad, rich narrative of political thought that will have a definitive impact on future histories of southern Europe and beyond. Liberalism after the Revolution is a smart and intellectually engaging read that will prove to be a true delight to readers for years to come.

The Edmund Keeley Prize comes with an award of $1,000 and a one-year renewal of MGSA membership. The award will be presented at the Award Ceremony of the 28th MGSA Symposium on Thursday, October 17, 2024, in Princeton, NJ. 

The Edmund Keeley Book Prize is awarded to an academic book dealing with modern Greece or a Hellenic theme published originally in the English language. Through this award the Modern Greek Studies Association celebrates the contributions of Professor Edmund Keeley, who served as the first president of our association, authored or translated over 30 books, taught Hellenic Studies for 40 years, and was a mentor and a source of inspiration for generations of scholars. 

The committee takes this opportunity to extend its gratitude to all those who submitted their excellent work. 

The 2024 Keeley Book Prize Committee:

• Evdoxios Doxiadis, Simon Fraser University
• Laurie Kain Hart, University of California, Los Angeles
• Neovi Karakatsanis, Indiana University South Bend, Chair