I've only known of David Holden through his books "Farewell to Arabia" (1966) and "The House of Saud". He began this last book in 1976 but did not finish it before he was killed in Egypt in December 1977. While searching for a copy of "Farewell to Arabia", which is still on my TBR-list, I came across a third book he had written, "Greece without Columns".
Having worked and lived in both, Greece and Saudi Arabia (and both times for the same Saudi employer), I immediately set out to find a copy on ebay but the one I found was so sinfully expensive - and that was before postage - that I content myself with the online copy.
David Holden - and the above documentary which is based on his book and dates back to 1964 - fears that "Greece may end up a museum for tourists on the fringes of Europe" and that, unless things change, Greece may remain "an underdeveloped state with an overdeveloped history. A place where foreigners will come for holidays and where Greeks will be forced to leave in order to survive".
As one Greek reader observed, "Obsolete. Nothing to do with today's reality", while another writes, "Condemned to push their burdens up the mountain, never reaching the top. The life of the Greek citizen even today.". Either way, in my opinion it's a book still worth reading.
