The economic history since the restoration has primarily been formed by historians and other social scientists who accepted the theoretical and methodological hegemony of historical studies. In other words, Greek economic history did not possess a stable and autonomously evolving neighboring theoretical framework in economics (or political economy) with which to engage and interact.
Until recently, the Greek economy was perceived as just another example of the backwardness that dependency on international economic centers can bring to a country, or even as a result of the recklessness of Greek entrepreneurs and their indifference to investing in the secondary sector of the economy. Today, we could not dispute the development of the Greek economy during the 19th century.
If we set aside the naive views that demanded from the Greek economy to undergo an industrial revolution immediately after the establishment of the Greek state, and therefore for Greece to become England, or at least France or Germany, the quantitative figures available indicate that the economy developed at slow and often uneven rates, but sufficiently to maintain contact with the most advanced economies of the time or, during certain periods, to converge with them.
This collective volume addressed one of the central weaknesses of both historical and contemporary Greek economic history, the inability to structurally integrate the Greek economy into the broader international framework in which it operated. Economic history in Greece is still very 'Greek', that is, constructed within the patterns of its national history's space and time, and thus closely intertwined with the history of the changing Greek state.
In contrast to this perception, which essentially treats it as a quasi-closed and self-sufficient entity, the Greek economy represented, throughout the 19th century, a small-sized entity with limited internal integration and cohesion, open to international exchanges.
[Excerpt from the introduction text of the publication]
