Angeliki Evangelos Laiou

Background

Angeliki Evangelos Laiou was born on April 6, 1941, in Athens, Greece, to Evangelos K. and Virginia I. (Apostolides) Laios. Angeliki came to the United States in 1959.

Education

In 1961, Angeliki received a Bachelor of Arts from Brandeis University. In 1962, she received a Master of Arts from Harvard University and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1966.

Career

Laiou served as an Instructor and Assistant Professor at Harvard before moving to Brandeis and then to Rutgers, where she rose to Distinguished Professor. In 1981, she returned to Harvard, where she taught the history of Byzantium, the Crusades - her commanding presence, penetrating mind, and ferocious dedication to her teaching and her students made her Core course on this topic ever-popular among the undergraduates - and Balkan history. She was a faithful affiliate of Lowell House.

Her career culminated in the massively definitive three volumes of the Economic History of Byzantium for which she recruited the world’s leading specialists and wrote eight of the finest chapters. A benchmark for all future research, this work innovated by being freely available online. Her most recent book, co-authored with her friend the Parisian numismatist Cécile Morrisson, offers a brilliant synoptic view of the Byzantine economy that goes far beyond summarizing the great work.

She was elected as a member of the Hellenic Parliament on the list of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement in April 2000. In May 2000, she was also named as Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs charged with relations with the Greek diaspora. Laiou’s diplomatic service entailed fostering better cultural and intellectual relations with Greece’s ancient enemy, an engagement that has no better incarnation than her dedication to her beloved Turkish graduate students. In the end, and to her colleagues’ delight, she happily returned to full-time duty at Harvard in 2001. She resigned the post six months later to resume her academic activities and resigned her Parliament seat as well in 2002.

Achievements

• Angeliki E. Laiou was one of the world’s leading historians of the Byzantine Empire - the successor of the Roman Empire in the Middle East - and of the Crusades. Celebrated for her path-breaking research in Mediterranean economic and women’s history, in 1985 the sole female permanent member of the Department of History pioneered as the first female chair. Born in Athens, Laiou played major roles in the culture and politics of her native land, as Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Republic (2000) and as a Socialist Member of Parliament. Her career as a historian, diplomat, and educator spanned the continents.
  
  Decorated as a Commander of the Order of Honor of the Hellenic Republic, Laiou was only the second woman selected as a permanent member of the Academy of Athens since the Academy’s founding. Among many honors, she held two Guggenheims; was a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; was a member of the Academia Europaea; and was a Corresponding Member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Paris), the Austrian Akademie der Wissenschaften, and the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Her activities promoting Byzantine studies in the People’s Republic of China led to her being named an honorary professor at Nankai University.

Works

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  • Byzantium, A World Civilization

    (These seven chapters, originally given as lectures honori...)

    1992
  • Women, Family and Society in Byzantium

    (Women, Family and Society in Byzantium, the first of thre...)

    2011
  • The Hand of Angelos: An Icon Painter in Venetian Crete

    (A tumultuous period in history, the late Byzantine era bo...)

    2010
  • Byzantine Women and Their World

    (A cursory glance at the Byzantine world would show women ...)

    2002
  • Studies on the Internal Diaspora of the Byzantine Empire

    (Although ethnicity is a modern concept and would not have...)

    1998
  • Peasant Society in the late Byzantine Empire: A social and demographic study

    (The book description for the previously published "Peasan...)

    1977
  • The Byzantine Economy

    (This is a concise survey of the economy of the Byzantine ...)

    2007
  • Constantinople and the Latins: The Foreign Policy of Andronicus II, 1282-1328

    (At the age of twenty-two, Andronicus II became sole ruler...)

    1972
  • Charanis Studies: Essays in Honor of Peter Charanis 1980
  • Gender, Society and Economic Life in Byzantium 1992
  • Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval Societies 1993
  • Law and Society in Byzantium: Ninth-Twelfth Centuries 1994
  • The Dumbarton Oaks Conversations and the United Nations, 1944 - 1994 1998

Membership

Angeliki was a member of the American Historical Association, Medieval Academics of America, Societa Ligure de Storia Patria, Greek Community Study of South Eastern Europe.

Personality

Laiou had the rare gifts of an original mind, an iron will, and a penetrating intellect. She fearlessly spoke out to correct error or false impressions, but always chose her words judiciously. Even those who sometimes disagreed with her in departmental discussions knew that she shared their highest standards and appreciated her courtly tone.

A very private person, Laiou was a devoted friend and impeccable colleague. She could display, behind the scenes, a gentle attentiveness and humor that would have amazed those who only knew her imposing persona professionally.

Connections

On July 14, 1973, Angeliki married Stavros B. Thomadakis. They have one son, Vassili N.

Father:

Evangelos K. Laios

Mother:

Virginia I. (Apostolides) Laios

Spouse:

Stavros B. Thomadakis

Stavros Thomadakis is a Greek economist who served as chairman of the Hellenic Capital Market Commission, Professor of Finance at the University of Athens and chairman of the Public Interest Oversight Board.

Son:

Vassili N. Thomadakis

Friend:

Hélène Ahrweiler

Born on 29 August 1926.

Helene Glykatzi-Ahrweiler is a Greek academic Byzantinologist. She is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Greece. In the 2008 show Great Greeks, she was named in the 100 greatest Greeks of all time.

Friend:

Cécile Morrisson

Born on 16 June 1940.

Cécile Morrisson is a French historian and numismatist. She is Director of Research emeritus at the French National Center for Scientific Research and specializes in the study of the Byzantine Empire.