2 Dr Konstantina Maragkou
Dr Konstantina Maragkou

Dr Konstantina Maragkou

Visiting Research Fellow

Department of International History

Room No
SAR1.02A
Office Hours
Friday, 4pm - 5pm; Other times by appointment
Languages
English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish
Key Expertise
History of Cold War, Human Rights, Post-1945 Europe, Modern Greece

About me

Dr Konstantina Maragkou is a Contemporary Historian with a particular interest in the political and diplomatic aspects of the Cold War, on which she has taught extensively at Yale University and the LSE. Following studies at Cambridge University, she held fellowships at LSE, NYU, Princeton, and Yale during which she wrote several articles and turned her largely extended thesis on Anglo-Greek relations during the Greek Colonels’ regime into a book published by Hurst & Co / Oxford University Press.

Her current project derives from research pursued during the recent tenure of a Marie Curie Senior Fellowship and deals with the fascinating subject of Human Rights history. More specifically, it investigates the impact of the Greek Colonels’ abusive regime on the emboldening of the international human rights regime, with specific reference to the criminalisation of torture, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Following the unearthing of a fascinating private archive, she has also started a side project on the evolution of female activism on human rights and environmental issues since the 1960s.

Expertise Details

Cold War in Europe; Twentieth Century History of Greece; Human Rights Activism; Anglo-Greek relations.

Publications

Books

  • Britain and the Colonels’ Greece, 1967-1974: between pragmatism and human rights, Hurst & Co / Oxford University Press USA, January 2020
  • From tragedy to triumph: The Greek Colonels’ regime and the Human Rights Revolution: Book proposal for my current project invited by Professor Samuel Moyn, editor of the Human Rights in History series published by Cambridge University Press

Articles in Peer-reviewed Journals

  • ‘The relevance of the 1970s détente to American foreign policy: the case of Greece’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, Volume 25, Issue 4, 2014
  • ‘From Detente to Afghanistan: NATO’s second-generation challenges’ (in Greek), Diethnis kai Evropaiki Politiki (International and European Policy), Vol. 17, Jan.-March 2010
  • ‘British reactions to “the rape of Greek Democracy”’, Journal of Contemporary History, January 2010, Volume 45, No. 1
  • ‘Favoritism in NATO’s southern flank: the case of the Greek Colonels, 1967-1974’,
  • Cold War History, Vol. 9, Issue 3, 2009
  • ‘The foreign factor and the Greek Colonels’ rise to power on 21st April 1967’,
  • Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Volume 6, Issue 4, December 2006

Chapters in Edited Volumes (peer-reviewed)

  • ‘Activists without borders: Transnational campaigning during the Greek Case, 1967-69’, in Kostis Kornetis et al, The Greek Case in the Council of Europe, Bloomsbury Academic (forthcoming 2022)
  • ‘The Beckets and the Colonels: A study in the micro-evolution of global human rights activism in the ‘long 1960s’, in Evanthis Hatzivassiliou et al., The Greek Dictatorship and the International System: A Case Study of Southern European Military Juntas, Routledge Cold War Series, March 2020
  • Light against darkness: The Council of Europe and the Greek Colonels (in Greek), Athens, Ekdoseis Patakis, April 2019
  • Chapter contribution to the ‘NATO at 70: A Historiographical Approach’, edited by Linda Risso, Routledge, February 2019
  • ‘Anglo-American attitudes towards Konstantinos Karamanlis during the Greek Colonels’ regime’, Athens, Ekdoseis Roi, 2009
  • ‘Anglo-Greek relations in the 1960s’ (in Greek), Athens, Ekdoseis Papazisi, 2009

Invited Newspaper articles

  • Kathimerini (Greece’s main daily morning newspaper with an English edition), 16/07/2017

Invited Book reviews

  • Nicolas Badalassi and Sarah B. Snyder (eds.), The CSCE and the End of the Cold War: Diplomacy, Societies and Human Rights, 1972–1990, The English Historical Review, December 2020
  • James Edward Miller, ‘The United States and the making of Modern Greece: History and Power, 1950-74’, H-Diplo, December 2010

Teaching

Dr Konstantina Maragkou teaches the following course at undergraduate level:

HY116 - International Politics since 1914: Peace and War