On Monday, December 6, 2021, Professor of Economic and Social History of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Mr. Kostas Kostis gave an online lecture to Athens College High School students entitled: “The political economy of the War of Independence”. His speech was part of our School’s tribute to the 200-year anniversary of the Greek Revolution.

Mr. Kostis spoke on the economic dimension of the War of Independence and analyzed the sources of income used for financing the Revolution but also the creation of a central state administration. He then answered questions posed by members of the governing bodies of the Fifteen-Member Student Councils of Athens College and Psychico College High Schools.

Mr. Kostis was prefaced by Athens College President Professor Costas Synolakis ’75. 

About Kostas Kostis

He was born in Athens in 1957. He studied Economics at the Department of Economics of the University of Athens and then economic history at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris, where he defended his Ph.D. thesis in 1985. From 2006 to 2009 he held the Chair of Modern and Contemporary Greek Studies in the same School.

In 1990 he was awarded the Nikos Svoronos prize for young historians of the Institute of Technology and Research of the University of Crete. He taught at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration of the University of Athens from 1988 to 2003 and was its elected Chairman from 2001-2003.

Since 2004, he is Professor at the Department of Economics of the University of Athens and for many years has been director of the Economic History Division.

He is member of the administrative council of the Greek General State Archives and consultant to the Alpha Bank History Archives.

Among his many publications are the following (in Greek):

• The spoiled children of History. The formation of the modern Greek state, 18th-21st century, Athens, 2013
• State and business in Greece. A history of the Aluminum of Greece, Athens, 2013
• History of the National Bank of Greece, 1914-1940, Athens, 2004
• In the time of plague. Images from the Societies of the Greek Peninsula, 14th-19th century, Herakleion, 1995

From 1976 to 1979 he was distinguished as a decathlon athlete with Panellinios Athletic Club and in 1978 was named Greek champion.