The History of Eastern Europe for Beginners


Book Description

Traces the history of the region from World War I to the present, and describes influential events, movements, and individuals.




Eastern Europe! 2nd Edition


Book Description

The long-awaited new edition of the acclaimed, first-ever comprehensive, informative, and entertaining history of Eastern Europe in English―thoroughly updated, with a major new section on the postcommunist era and a foreword by BBC Central Europe Correspondent Nick Thorpe. When the legendary Romulus killed his brother Remus and founded the city of Rome in 753 BCE, Plovdiv--today the second-largest city in Bulgaria--was thousands of years old. Indeed, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Brussels, Amsterdam are all are mere infants compared to Plovdiv. This is just one of the paradoxes that haunts and defines the New Europe, that part of Europe that was freed from Soviet bondage in 1989, and which is at once both much older than the modern Atlantic-facing power centers of Western Europe while also being much younger than them. Eastern Europe! is a brief and concise (but informative) introduction to Eastern Europe and its myriad customs and history. Even those knowledgeable about Western Europe often see Eastern Europe as terra incognito, with a sign on the border declaring "Here be monsters." Tomek Jankowski's book is a gateway to understanding both what unites and separates Eastern Europeans from their Western brethren, and how this vital region has been shaped by but has also left its mark on Western Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. It is a reader-friendly guide to a region that is all too often mischaracterized as remote, insular, and superstitious. The book comprises three parts, The first sums up modern linguistic, geographic, and religious contours of Eastern Europe, while the second, main part delves into the region's history, from the earliest origins of Europe up to the end of the Cold War, as well as--new to the 2nd edition--a section on the post-Cold War period. Closing the book is a section that makes sense of geographical name references -- many cities, rivers, or regions have different names -- and also includes an Eastern Europe by Numbers feature that provides charts describing the populations, politics, and economies of the region today. Throughout are boxed-off anecdotes (Useless Trivia) describing fascinating aspects of Eastern European history or culture.




A History of Eastern Europe


Book Description

A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change is a wide-ranging single volume history of the "lands between", the lands which have lain between Germany, Italy, and the Tsarist and Soviet empires. Bideleux and Jeffries examine the problems that have bedevilled this troubled region during its imperial past, the interwar period, under fascism, under communism, and since 1989. While mainly focusing on the modern era and on the effects of ethnic nationalism, fascism and communism, the book also offers original, striking and revisionist coverage of: * ancient and medieval times * the Hussite Revolution, the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation * the legacies of Byzantium, the Ottoman Empire and the Hapsburg Empire * the rise and decline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth * the impact of the region's powerful Russian and Germanic neighbours * rival concepts of "Central" and "Eastern" Europe * the 1920s land reforms and the 1930s Depression. Providing a thematic historical survey and analysis of the formative processes of change which have played the paramount roles in shaping the development of the region, A History of Eastern Europe itself will play a paramount role in the studies of European historians.




Eastern Europe!


Book Description

Eastern Europe! is a brief and concise (but informative) introduction to Eastern Europe and its myriad customs and history. When the legendary Romulus killed his brother Remus and founded the city of Rome in 753 BCE, Plovdiv -- today the second-largest city in Bulgaria -- was already thousands of years old. Indeed, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Brussels, Amsterdam are all are mere infants compared to Plovdiv. This is just one of the paradoxes that haunts and defines the New Europe, that part of Europe that was freed from Soviet bondage in 1989 which is at once both much older than the modern Atlantic-facing power centers of Western Europe while also being in some ways much younger than them. Even those knowledgeable about Western Europe often see Eastern Europe as terra incognita, with a sign on the border declaring "Here be monsters." This book is a gateway to understanding both what unites and separates Eastern Europeans from their Western brethren, and how this vital region has been shaped by, but has also left its mark on, Western Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Ideal for students, businesspeople, and those who simply want to know more about where Grandma or Grandpa came from, Eastern Europe! is a user-friendly guide to a region that is all too often mischaracterized as remote, insular, and superstitious. Illustrations throughout include: 40 photos, 40 maps and 40 figures (tables, charts, etc.) From the Trade Paperback edition.




Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After


Book Description

Covering all key Eastern European states and their history right up to the collapse of communism, this second edition of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After is a comprehensive political history of Eastern Europe taking in the whole of the century and the geographical area. Focusing on the attempt to create and maintain a functioning democracy, this new edition now: examines events in Bosnia and Herzegovina includes a new consideration of the evolution of the region since the revolutions of 1989–91 surveys the development of a market economy analyzes the realignment of Eastern Europe towards the West details the emergence of organized crime discusses each state individually includes an up-to-date bibliography. Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After provides an accessible introduction to this key area which is invaluable to students of modern and political history.




Exit into History


Book Description

'A book that takes you on an intimate journey through Eastern Europe at a time when the dust was still settling from the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Eva Hoffman travels from the Baltic to the Black Sea, building a compelling portrait of a region uncertain about its future.' Independent Shortly after the epochal events of 1989 Eva Hoffman spent several months in her native Poland and four other countries: the then-Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. She visited capital cities, wayside villages and provincial towns; stopped at shipyards, museums, and the coffee-houses of the intelligentsia; and talked to a great variety of people about the tumult they had lived through. Exit into History was the result: a portrait of the mosaic of the new Eastern Europe, a reconstruction of the turbulent post-war decades, and a meditation on the uses and misuses of historical memory.




A History of Eastern Europe Since the Middle Ages


Book Description

This volume surveys the first five hundred years of Eastern European history, focusing on the disappearance, assimilation, and recurrence of ethnic cultures over time and how the intermixing of cultures influenced the formation of modern states.




The Routledge History Handbook of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century


Book Description

Challenges of Modernity offers a broad account of the social and economic history of Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century and asks critical questions about the structure and experience of modernity in different contexts and periods. This volume focuses on central questions such as: How did the various aspects of modernity manifest themselves in the region, and what were their limits? How was the multifaceted transition from a mainly agrarian to an industrial and post-industrial society experienced and perceived by historical subjects? Did Central and Eastern Europe in fact approximate its dream of modernity in the twentieth century despite all the reversals, detours and third-way visions? Structured chronologically and taking a comparative approach, a range of international contributors combine a focus on the overarching problems of the region with a discussion of individual countries and societies, offering the reader a comprehensive, nuanced survey of the social and economic history of this complex region in the recent past. The first in a four-volume set on Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century, it is the go-to resource for those interested in the ‘challenges of modernity‘ faced by this dynamic region.




The Routledge History Handbook of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century


Book Description

Statehood examines the extending lines of development of nation-state systems in Eastern Europe, in particular considering why certain tendencies in state development found a different expression in this region compared to other parts of the continent. This volume discusses the differences between the social developments, political decisions, and historical experience that have influenced processes of state-building, with a focus on the structural problems of the region and the different paths taken to overcome them. The book addresses processes of building social orders and examines the contribution of state institutions to social and cultural integration and disintegration. It analyses institutional and personnel continuities that have outlasted the great political changes of the twentieth century and addresses the expansion of state activity in shaping property relations in agriculture and industry as well as in social security and family politics. Taking a comparative approach based on experiential history, allowing individual experience to be detached from specific national references, the volume delineates a transnational comparison of problems shared within the region as they have been passed down through history, providing definition to the specificity of Eastern Europe and situating the historical experience of the region within a pan-European context. The second in a four-volume set on Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century, it is the go-to resource for those interested in statehood and state-building in this complex region.




From Peoples Into Nations


Book Description

"This book is a history of East Central Europe since the late eighteenth century, the region of Europe between German central Europe and Russia in the East. Connelly argues the region, for which it is frequently hard to define exact boundaries and which is sometimes treated country-by-country in a way seemingly separate from the broader trends of European history, was one of shared experience despite most of the peoples being divided by linguistic, geographic, and political barriers. Beginning in the 1780s, an unwitting Habsburg monarch -- Joseph II -- decreed that his subjects would use only German, as he hoped to mold a common nationality using German over the disparate subjects. Instead, he unleashed the energies and struggle for the emergence of new nations that pitted small peoples armed with an idea against empires. The author argues that the underlying national self-assertion which emerged under imperial rule in the eighteen and nineteenth centuries shows deep connections to subsequent histories, to the creation of nation states of the regions after World War I, the failure of democratic rule in these states during the interwar years, the submersion of the region under Nazi then Soviet rule after 1939, and to the reinvention of sovereign states (and then the break up of two of them) after 1989. The book interconnects major themes and country histories for first time, chronicling this diverse region over many generations, from the time of Joseph, through democratic and socialist revolutions, genocide and Stalinism, through civil society movements struggling for liberal democracy, into our own day, when illiberal politicians come to power by exploiting very old fears"--