Ethnic Cleansing in Western Anatolia, 1912–1923

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.