Toynbee examines the conflict between Greece and Turkey after the First World War within the wider history of relations between Western Europe and the Near and Middle East. He considers Allied diplomacy, the Treaty of Sèvres, the Greek occupation of parts of Anatolia and the rise of the Turkish Nationalist movement. Drawing partly on his travels through Greece, Constantinople and Anatolia in 1921, he combines historical analysis with observations of political, social and military conditions.

A central argument is that Western intervention and the spread of Western political ideas, particularly nationalism, had destabilising effects when applied to regions with mixed populations and different political traditions. Toynbee examines atrocities committed during the Greco-Turkish conflict without treating violence as exclusive to either nationality. He also considers the government of Greek-occupied territories and Nationalist Turkey, arguing that Greece and Turkey increasingly faced a shared problem: how to define their political relationship with a powerful Western civilisation while preserving their own independence.