This two-volume work is a complete political, social, and economic history, from the Byzantine Empire through World War II and beyond, of the astonishing island that has stood at a crossroads of Western civilization and shared the successive waves of international change. Less than one-fourth the size of Cuba, one-third the size of Ireland, and always a pawn of one political power or another, it has reflected all the great world events as perhaps no other land on the map has done.