Sappho's Legacy

Winner of the 2023 Gourmand Cookbook Award for Greece in the Women Category Imaginatively interweaving literatures across a variety of subjects, Sappho's Legacy identifies the crucial role that islands and Greek economic culture play in teaching about capitalism's failures and alternatives. Marina Karides delivers a historical and ethnographic account of food cooperatives and microenterprises on the Greek island of Lesvos following the 2008 financial crisis to reveal the success stories of grassroots, traditional, and community-centered economics organized by people marginalized on the basis of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. Karides offers hope to others who are working against the tide of neoliberalism and heteropatriarchy to develop alternative or convivial economic practices that serve communities by providing a trail of rhythms from ancient times to the present that showcase Greece's historical resistance.