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This is the first history of modern Cyprus to tell the story of the people who lived on the island, the peasantry, during the period of British rule. While not ignoring the rise of nationalism and the consequent ethnic conflict that developed at this time, The People of Cyprus under British Rule focuses upon the experiences of the peasants, allowing them to speak for themselves through a series of oral history collections, while also utilising the archive of British rule, held in London and Nicosia.

Panikos Panayi blends economic, social, environmental, cultural, migratory and political history in his examination of the Cypriot people. He demonstrates how the 'decaying island' which the British discovered in 1878 (as described in the narratives which they constructed), underwent significant modernization by the time the imperial rulers left in 1960, meaning the transformation of health, education, environment and politics. Panayi goes on to show how, despite the changes which took place in this period, Cyprus remained a predominantly rural and peasant society at the end of British rule.

While concentrating on the everyday lives of the peasants, both through the observations of Britons and through the recollections of Cypriots themselves, the book also reveals how Greek nationalist elites increasingly used the modernization which had taken place, especially as a result of the spread of education, to persuade (Orthodox Christian) Cypriots that their destiny lay in unification with their so-called Greek motherland, of which hardly any had any direct experience.