Title: The Ampelokipiotika of Athens

Author: Thanasis Petrou

Date of Publication: 2023

Editions: OBLIK Editions

Subject: Graphic Novel-Local History

Pages: 194

If human knowledge, according to some estimates, increased by 90 % during the last century, we can assume how much more it will increase in the current century with the great ease with which technology allows people to reproduce media files, record history (both by experts and amateurs), support artistic and other events with the sole aim of capturing the events.

The unfathomable knowledge! Despair for the younger generations! Ignorance of important chronological events in the recent history of the Greek nation is inexcusable, but also dysfunctional is the nescience of world history through the easy communication of the small online neighborhood that reaches the till the ends of the world.

What can and what should young people learn, in the present and the future?

The graphic novel The Ampelokipiotika of Athens, designed by Thanasis Petrou, could be a guide for the contemporary teaching of local and global history. The architecture, the town planning, the development of the public health system, the lives of the refugees, the structures of the prison system, the personae and the tragedies of the era after the creation of the modern Greek state.

Important reformations that drastically changed the character of the region and the city, with profound imprints on buildings and mindsets, are revealed with rich illustrations, in a straightforward fashion through the author’s apt and laconic approach of the author, with a subtle sense of humor and above all an understanding of the city’s destiny.

Kudos to the publishing house OBLIK Editions, which surrounds the present publication with postcards, bookmarks and various materials for a multi-layered, warm reading for the present and the future readership who will surely be amazed after 150 years, with the changes in the neighborhood being striking and equally scheming, taking this book as a point of reference.

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