Book excerpt: The need for a "new" book on Greek colonization arose to analyse this phenomenon as a long-term process in a wide geographic area. The events related to individual cities and regions, although geographically very distant from each other, are linked through an articulated network of material and immaterial relations and have to be considered as part of a broader mobility process in a Mediterranean perspective. The intention of "Comparing Greek Colonies" is to bring geographically and culturally distant regions such as Southern Italy/Sicily and the Black Sea, closer together, not merely to find "similarities and differences", but to broaden the scholars’ perspective and overcome existing, generalizing, and biased models, that are often rooted in local scientific traditions. The proceedings of the international conference "Comparing Greek Colonies. Mobility and Settlement Consolidation from Southern Italy to the Black Sea (8th – 6th century BC)", 7.–9.11.2018 in Rome, are structured around three core topics (economic system; relationships with the indigenous populations; social and territorial systems) that constitute the cornerstones of the political formation of the polis in the Archaic period and for its development during the Classical and Hellenistic Ages.