ABSTRACT

This volume is published in honour of the acclaimed work of Robert Holland, historian of the British Empire and the Mediterranean, and it brings together essays based on the original research of his colleagues, former students and friends. The focal theme is modern Cyprus, on which much of Robert Holland’s own history writing was concentrated for many years. The essays analyse British rule in Cyprus between 1878 and 1960, and especially the transition to independence; the coverage, however, also incorporates the post-colonial era and the construction of present-day dilemmas. The Cypriot experience intertwines with Anglo-Hellenic relations generally, so that a section of the book is devoted to those aspects that have been central to Robert Holland’s sustained contribution. The essays explore, inter alia, historiography, social history, economics, politics, ideology, education and the 2013 financial crisis. Taken as a collection the essays serve as an appropriate tribute to Robert Holland as well as an innovative addition to the existing historiography of colonial and post-colonial Cyprus. They will be of great interest to anyone interested in Imperial and Commonwealth History, Anglo-Hellenic relations and the Eastern Mediterranean in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

chapter |4 pages

Introduction

part I|18 pages

Robert Holland as historian

part II|43 pages

Themes on the history of colonial Cyprus

chapter 3|13 pages

Society, religion and moral reform in early twentieth-century Cyprus

Syllogos Orthodoxia and the 1907 Sunday Observance Law

chapter 4|16 pages

Unseen and unrecognised

The physical legacy of the Second World War in Cyprus

chapter 5|12 pages

‘An ideal to be attained’

The 1946 Ten Year Development Plan for Cyprus

part III|88 pages

Cyprus’s transition from empire

chapter 6|19 pages

An unsettled state

Majority rule versus federalism in Cyprus, 1957–1964

chapter 8|15 pages

The Unitary Democratic Front of Reconstruction

EOKA’s transformation from an armed movement to a political formation

chapter 9|16 pages

An uncommon alliance

The Democratic Union and AKEL during the 1959 elections

chapter 10|12 pages

From British colonial government to Communal Chambers

A change of the guard in Cyprus education

part IV|42 pages

The post-colonial experience to the present

chapter 11|14 pages

Cyprus in transition 1960–1974

The impressive economic growth of a newly founded state and its impact on the Cyprus problem

chapter 12|10 pages

Cyprus and international organisations

Overcoming the obstacles to membership 1

chapter 13|16 pages

Cyprus in crisis

The ramifications of the 2013 bank bail-in

part V|40 pages

Aspects of Anglo-Hellenism

chapter 14|11 pages

The substance and the shadows

Reflections on British-Greek relations over two centuries

chapter 15|14 pages

Searching for a new balance

Attitudes of the Greek political elites towards Britain, 1950–1966