[.ca] Macedonia and Greece: The Struggle to Define a New ... (ISBN 0786402288)

A Macedonian:
People have to come to terms with that Macedonians exist, despite the political games some countries play, history must be followed and not written to suite there political needs, John Shea has done that, he has followed history from ancient sources and given his analysis, as for some of these reviews here they should start by reading ancient texts and understanding them rather than just taking sections to tell us what is what, if they would like to see some quotes i will be happy to present some for them: THEOPHRASTUS QUOTE (HIST.PLANT 5.2.1) ''THE BEST TIMBER WHICH COMES INTO HELLAS FOR THE CARPENTER'S USE IS MACEDONIAN'' "And my justification is this. Even in the ancient poets and historians, those who wrote the purist Greek, one may find Persian words adopted because of their common use in the spoken language, such as 'parasangs,' 'astands' and 'angari' and 'schoenus,' masculine or feminine; this last is a measure of distance still so called among many people. I know, too, of many Attic writers who use idioms of the Macedonians as a result of intercourse with them." Athenaeus., Deipnosophistae, III. 121-122. this is regarding the ancient macedonian and persian languages that have influenced ancient "koine" greek.... GET A EDUCATION......

some questions:
After reading this book alot of questions arised To all those who claim that they are "unbiased": How come ancient Macedonians were welcomed to Olympic games? Why did they ALL bear greek names? Phillipos - the man who is friend of horses Alexander - the man who honours valour Why didn't their non-greek langauge or non-greek names survive? The so called state of "Macedonia" is a side effect of communism. Get a life!

Waste of time:
The book is a real waste of time and money. Shea claims that started this book "from a state of profound ignorance," (p.7) and throughout the book he demonstrates his ignorance big time! He tried to justify the appropriation of Greek and Bulgarian history by the FYROM pseudo-historians and because he does not speak Greek or Bulgarian, he used Macedonian translators. That's hilarious! Referring to IMRO (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) and its constitution that stated in 1893 that every Bulgarian could join the organization, Shea follows the FYROM-ian propaganda claiming that "Bulgarian at the time should not be understood with its modern meaning. It maybe synonimous with every Slav with Bulgarian Church affiliation." (p.168). But of course, Mr. Shea! If someone said in 1893 "Bulgarian," he did not mean he was Bulgarian, how could he, right? When someone in 19th century Australia or Canada said "I am English" they did not mean they were English, they meant that they spoke English and go to the Anglican church, right?! How can someone who presents such "arguments" call himself a historian! Every serious historian knows that the Macedonian nation and language were a product of the joint efforts of the Stalin's communist stooges and Tito! Before that, there were merely Bulgarians, Greeks, Albanians and other minorites, but no Macedonians. Serious historians as Jelavic and Banac confirm the facts. In conclusion, Shea started the project in a state of profound ignorance and he also finished it in a state of profound ignorance.

CASE CLOSED:
Consider the world as your country, with common laws, governed by men of merit, regardless of race. I do not distinguish between Greeks and barbarians, as do the narrow-minded. I am not interested in the country or race of origin of people. I only distinguish people according to their virtues. To me every virtuous foreigner is Greek and each non-virtuous Greek is worse than a barbarian. - Megalos Alexandros History has been written and the facts are plain. To deny Truth is an indication of weakness and inferiority. Case Closed.

An agnostic excursion with leftist-libertarian flavor.:
Shea's main methodological approach,if we assume that authors apriori developed a thesis in novo,is not so much synthesis of positive evidence for his case-namely the authenticity of the (Slav) Macedonian nation,but neutralization of the sloppy examples of negative evidence for such an ethnic phenomena. Thus,by applying to thin Occam Razor to bundle of ancient socio-ethnography,the author cleared enough space for application of liberal methods in the function of conclusions.And primary place among these methods are analogues,exercised with disregard to the all morphologic gradient proprietary to their specific idiosyncratic context.Thus,after display of impressive arsenal of syntagmas that are giving impression of difference between Macedonians of antiquity with the rest of the Greeks (Negative evidence),everything else is one giant "maybe",spoken in refrain,given as a catalyst to set of facts and many fallacies,which would be forgivable if were to deal with something of a reader,but here they are errors which multiply themselves. Written with bias derived from authors self-declared compassion for the cause of Slav-Macedonians,he fails to see that what he erects,a monumental theory of ethnogenesis,gives ideological power to forces which tend to oppose the process of rehabilitation of Slavic (Serbian and Bulgarian) self-perceptions of that nation,which is most properly aligned with their ethnocultural contexts. Such approach would be in accordance of the ongoing spiral of thesis-anthithesis-synthesis,based on positive archaeological,linguistic,historic and sociologic data relevant for the ethnic formation this book tries to demystify,although it precisely,by its unilateralism in evidence and non-causal exegesis,fails to accomplish.