The experience of mass population movements was crucial for the nation-states that emerged from the dissolution of the three major continental empires, particularly in the Balkans. The "short" Greek interwar period (1922-1940) was characterized by efforts to homogenize an ethnically and culturally diverse population, as well as by attempts at contradictory reform interventions.

Combining approaches from researchers in different fields, starting points, and perspectives, the studies in this volume trace the fluidity that characterized the class memberships, political interventions, and ideological identities of that time. More specifically, they examine the political formation of space through arteries, nodes, and places of memory, the subjection of the countryside to national legitimacy, the creation of new social and political subjects, and the efforts to integrate refugees as processes of the state's adaptation to the international context.

The threads that unravel allow us to identify the particularities and similarities of the interwar period both in relation to other periods of Greek history and in relation to contemporary international developments. At a time when theories of the "clash of civilizations" and essentialist views of social phenomena tend to equate the past with an endless sequence of anniversaries outside of history, these studies highlight the importance of social history for an understanding of the past grounded in the specific.