Lost Worlds of Ancient and Modern Greece

'This is a lively account of a formidable personality, scholar and archaeologist in the making.' – Sir Michael Llewellyn Smith (2020), British Ambassodor to Greece 1996 – 1999

'Informative, excellently-edited and a delight to read.' – Professor John Bintliff (2020), Edinburgh University

'This book stands as a major contribution – and an accessible one – to our understanding of the history of Greece in the years 1921-1924. In bringing Gilbert Bagnani back to life through his subject’s letters and through his own careful delving into primary sources, Ian Begg joins a group of scholars [who] have examined the personal lives, attitudes and idiosyncrasies of archaeologists, artists and performers, anthropologists, and historians as entryways into the discoveries they made, using their personalities as lenses for their scholarly or artistic methods.' – Robert Pounder (2021): Bryn Mawr Classical Review

'The titles of some books act like magnets. They pull you towards them and command attention... It is not about the lost worlds of Ancient Greece alone but also about the lost worlds of Modern Greece... Who is Gilbert Bagnani and what adventures is he having in Greece before and after the Asia Minor Catastrophe? Any hesitation you may have had vanishes into thin air when you start reading this absorbing, literate, informative and simply wonderful book.' – James Karas (2022): Greek Press, Toronto, March 4, 2022

‘In 2022 Greece will be commemorating the one-hundredth anniversary of the Asia Minor Catastrophe. There are only a few books in English accessible to a broad audience that consider the events of 1922... To these we should now add Begg’s Lost Worlds.’ – Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan (2022): Journal of Modern Greek Studies

‘A serious and punctilious archaeologist, culturally open to the investigation of other historical periods, an able journalistic correspondent, an incurable salon-lover and admirer of luxury, gifted with an intelligent sense of irony, even a secret agent. Gilbert Bagnani’s multifaceted personality emerges very well from the pages of Ian Begg’s book, which takes us not only through the history of Greece in the 1920s but also through that of the Archaeological Schools and of the Italian one in particular.’ - Stefano Struffolino (2022), Journal of Greek Archaeology