Drawing on the insights of the French Geographical School and key ideas of Arnold Toynbee and Samuel Huntington, Prevelakis redefines modern Hellenism as a residue of Hellenic civilisation, left over from the diluting historical waves after the fall of Rome. Greeks share the Hellenic heritage with western and eastern Europeans, Muslims and Jews. Language, religion, landscapes and certain other less visible elements, however, link Greeks more directly to Hellenic civilisation.

Prevelakis argues that the Greek nation-state was a necessary adaptation of modern Hellenism to the conditions of modernity that emerged after the European Wars of Religion.