The Greek landing in Smyrna in May 1919 is widely seen as the catalyst of the Turkish national struggle but even during the chaos of between 1919-1923, the diverse peoples of Asia Minor coexisted and created astonishing but fragile infra-national solutions. In sharp contrast to popular history, this book tells the often-overlooked story of cooperation and resistance in a province renowned for its rich and prosperous ethnic and religious diversity in the face of a larger geopolitical struggle. As such, this research demonstrates that even the most contested national conflicts can display a remarkable degree of capacity for coexistence at the local level, a capacity that is all too easily forgotten amid global conflicts today.

"Eser’s work is a remarkably clear, fine-grained, state-of-the-art study of the sensitive issue of how Christian and cosmopolitan life was destroyed before, during, and after the Great War in Western Anatolia." - American Historical Review