History and Myth: Italy's War on Greece 1940-1943

Mussolini's unprovoked attack on Greece in 1940 met with defiant resistance and, to everyone's amazement, led to the first victories against the Axis in WWII. In the wake of a shattering German invasion in April 1941, however, Italian troops came to occupy the greater part of Greece. The traumatic experience of the occupied population — one in ten Athenians died of hunger — and the ultimate fate of the Italian forces at the hands of the Germans is now remembered mostly through the distorting prism of fictionalized books and movies. The true story is more dramatic, and is worth telling. Athanasios (Thanasi) Moulakis, President Emeritus of the American University of Iraq, was born in Athens. He studied Classics and Political Science in Germany where he received his PhD. He taught at German Universities, the London School of Economics, and the European University Institute in Florence. Coming to the US he taught at UCSD and St John's College, Annapolis before becoming founding director of the Herbst Program of Humanities for Engineers at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He later assumed the direction of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies at the University of Lugano, Switzerland. In 1996 he was Fulbright Professor of Philosophy at the University of Jena. In 2008 he became Chief Academic Officer and Acting President of the American University of Afghanistan and subsequently President of the American University of Iraq in Sulaimani. In 1996 his book Beyond Utility: Liberal Education for a Technological Age received the American Association of Colleges and Universities' prize for the best book on liberal education.