ABSTRACT
My father, Panayiotis Mouzelis, was born at the turn of the century in the small Greek village of Amphiklia (or Dadi) in the province of Phiotis. His parents were poor peasants. When he and his two older brothers were all in their teens they moved to Lamia (the capital of Phiotis), where they began their careers with small manual jobs in the minor trading firm of a distant relative. Through hard work and some luck they managed, first, to become the principal partners in the firm, and then to expand their entrepreneurial activities both vertically (from trading cotton to the construction of cotton mills) and horizontally (from the export of cotton to that of tobacco).
