This book sheds new and revealing light on British cultural and information policies in Greece by unearthing previously unexamined or insufficiently examined primary sources. These sources draw an intricate picture of a complex moment when, in the ruins of post-war southern Europe, British institutions, principally in this case the British Council and the BBC, sought to infiltrate and shape Greek society by promoting British political and social values. As Cold War tensions became increasingly evident, the book shows how British information and cultural policy increasingly became embodied in a sustained anti-communist propaganda campaign. As the civil war in Greece became an epicentre of the early Cold War, the successes and failures of British policy, and their impact on Greek society more generally, are scrutinized in detail.

Gioula Koutsopanagou (BA Athens, MA and PhD LSE) is founding director of the Media History Workshop (ETMIET) in the Research Centre for Modern Greece at Panteion University, Athens and adjunct academic staff of the Faculty of Humanities in the Hellenic Open University, co-editor of the four-volume Encyclopaedia of the Greek Press, the author of the monograph The British Press and the Greek Crisis, 1943–1949. Orchestrating the Cold-War ‘Consensus’ in Britain. She is currently writing a monograph on From the War for Freedom to Democracy: the BBC Greek Service, 1939-2005.