Stewards of the Land: The American Farm School and Greece in the Twentieth Century (review) (2005)

Reviewed by: Stewards of the Land: The American Farm School and Greece in the Twentieth Century Peter S. Allen Brenda Marder , Stewards of the Land: The American Farm School and Greece in the Twentieth Century. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004. Pp. xiii + 502. $55 hardcover, $30 paper. Brenda Marder has written a comprehensive and very personal history of the Thessalonica Agricultural and Industrial Institute, much better known as the American Farm School, of Thessaloniki, Greece. It is comprehensive in that it covers the entire history of the school and personal in the sense that Marder [End Page 402] lived in Greece for a long time and once taught at the School; she focuses very much on the individuals who founded and shaped this remarkable institution over the century it has been in operation. She also provides a précis of Greek history for this time and describes the turbulent political climate of the Balkans during the past century and its effects on the school, some of which were devastating. The book is divided into two parts, the first of which covers the period from the founding of the School in 1904 to 1949. This was previously published in 1979 as Stewards of the Land: The American Farm School and Modern Greece (East European Quarterly/Columbia University Press). It is a cross between a popular and scholarly account with a strong bibliography, but this section was not updated for this edition and therefore does not take account of any of the considerable scholarship on the Balkans from the past three decades. This is a bit unfortunate since such seminal books as Loring Danforth's The Macedonia Conflict (Princeton, 1995) and Anastasia Karakasidou's Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood (Chicago, 1997), just to name two, have expanded our understanding of Balkan history and culture enormously and contain information that might have enhanced Marder's account. The second part, entitled, Stewards of the Land: The American Farm School and Greece in the Twentieth Century 1950–2002, is all new material and draws on very up-to-date sources. The present volume is mostly a linear chronological account of the School's history with a few excursions into related events. The author has done an admirable job of illuminating this history and making it alive and accessible. Her portraits of the various individuals who have been involved with the School are well drawn and supported by quotations from letters, diaries, School reports and other documents, newspapers and other primary sources. At the end of each section are large numbers of photo-graphs, some with captions, others without. These are an invaluable enhancement and help convey what the Farm School is all about. Marder's task in writing this history was made easier by the fact that there are good primary sources available on the Farm School. Although some important documents have been lost over the years due to fires and other catastrophes, the bulk of the School's archives are intact, and thus Marder was able to access these records which she mined for the valuable gems they contain and put them to good use in the book. She was also able to conduct interviews with a considerable number of people intimately connected with the School. Since she began her research more than 30 years ago, she was able to speak with several individuals whose memory stretched back to the earliest years of the School. Materials from these interviews are a valuable component of the book and contribute to its intimate tone. The story of the American Farm School is a fascinating one. Founded in 1904 by John Henry House, its mission was to prepare young men from rural areas in the Balkans to return to their villages and introduce modern ideas about farming. At the time of the School's founding, House had been a missionary in various parts of the Ottoman Empire, mainly what is now Bulgaria, for more than 30 years. He was 60 years old and, in many respects, the School was what he had been aiming for all his life. It represented the culmination of a lifetime of good works and the fulfillment of a vision he...