The book attempts to reconstruct the multifaceted history of the societies of the Greek peninsula during the Ottoman Empire, spanning almost half a millennium. The author's aim is not only to narrate the history of the territorial unity of the southernmost tip of the Balkans, intersecting with the Aegean, Ionian, and Mediterranean seas, but also to present the variety and diversity of places and spaces that were formed and disbanded, contracted and expanded as social constructs, within historical time.

Within the pages of the book, snapshots from the early years of the Ottoman conquests are captured (a wedding outside Silivri, an earthquake in Thrace, an unexpected enemy: the plague, the road to the West), which will bring the Ottoman sultans to the forefront of history, in Constantinople itself – the Gotham City of the Ottomans – in Thessaloniki – the Jewish metropolis of the Ottoman Balkans – but also in Athens – the 'capital' in terms of population in the southernmost part of the Greek peninsula.

Having examined the cities, towns, fortresses, and castles, as well as the network of imperial construction, the space, the author also enters the worlds of the countryside, focusing on both the common denominator of agriculture and the diversity of exploitations.

For the next century, we follow the footsteps and galloping of Evliya Çelebi, a passionate "world traveler" (seyyah-i alem) of the territory of the Ottoman sultans, and his journeys in the Greek peninsula, between the years 1668-1671.

Finally, the developments of the 18th century in the societies under Ottoman rule are examined through the lens of a Greek book from the Enlightenment era, the Modern Geography by Daniel Philippidis and Grigorios Konstantas, which was published in Vienna in 1791, three years after the French Revolution. The years of Ottoman rule were a time of great crises and transformations that could not.