Dr Paris Papamichos Chronakis, Lecturer in Modern Greek History at Royal Holloway, has won a prestigious award for his book, ‘The Business of Transition: Jewish and Greek Merchants of Salonica from Ottoman to Greek Rule.’
The Jewish Book Council (JBC) announced the winners of the 74th National Jewish Book Awards with the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, as part of the JCC’s Books That Changed My Life Festival.
The National Jewish Book Awards is one of Jewish Book Council’s longest-running programmes, with more than 120 judges who considered over 700 submissions.
Dr Chronakis’ book, chosen as the best written, most comprehensive, and engaging title in its category, examines how the cosmopolitan bourgeoisie of the Eastern Mediterranean navigated the transition from empire to nation-state in the early twentieth century.
This social and cultural history shows how the Jewish and Greek merchants of Salonica (present-day Thessaloniki) skilfully managed the tumultuous shift from Ottoman to Greek rule amidst revolution and war, rising ethnic tensions, and heightened class conflict.
Reintroducing the once powerful voices of the mercantile class, the book traces their entangled trajectories as businessmen, community members, and civic leaders to illustrate how the self-reinvention of a Jewish-led bourgeoisie made a city Greek.
Paris draws on previously untapped local archives to weave a rich narrative of individual portraits, depicting revered philanthropists and committed patriots becoming vilified profiteers and victimized Salonicans.
Offering a kaleidoscopic view of a city in flux, this book reveals how the collapse of empire shook all the constitutive elements of Jewish and Greek identities, and how Jews and Greeks reinvented themselves amidst unprecedented economic and political changes. Salonica’s merchants were present in their own—and their city’s—remaking.
Dr Chronakis, from the Department of History, said: “I am delighted to have won an award for my book from the Jewish Book Council.
“Like the ultra-mobile Mediterranean merchants it describes, the book travelled with me from northern to southern Greece and from the east to the west coast of the United States before eventually returning to Europe.
“I am, therefore, particularly happy that it finally saw the light of day at Royal Holloway, as none of this would have been possible without the support of the School of Humanities, the Department of History, the Holocaust Research Institute, and, last but not least, the Hellenic Institute.”
‘The Business of Transition: Jewish and Greek Merchants of Salonica from Ottoman to Greek Rule.’ (Stanford University Press, 2024)
