The book is a synthetic approach to the changes in Greek society in the 1940s, and specifically during the Occupation as an autonomous period that nevertheless contains the seeds of subsequent developments. The focus is more on internal social processes rather than external factors and political confrontations between leaders, as the Occupation is one of the rare moments when society forcefully enters politics and the initiative of actions comes "from below".

Written "in the heat of the moment", as the relevant discussion always evolves in relation to the current political context and often takes on the character of a public dispute, the book also traces the trajectory of historical research from the nationalist theory of the "three rounds" of the Civil War, which dominated the post-war period, to the more consensual approaches attempted in the post-dictatorship period, starting with the recognition of the National Resistance and the Civil War, and from there to the shift, after 1990, from central political developments to specific social processes, social experience, and collective memory, as well as to the "problematic" aspects of the Occupation (those that are sometimes approached with a claim to revise the hegemonic leftist interpretations: collaborationism, civil conflicts, minorities).