'Fascinating masterful ... gems scattered throughout the book' Peter Frankopan Spectator
'Quirkily original but also scholarly and authoritative to be read for pleasure and serious
reflection' Telegraph *The dramatic history of Europe's shape-shifting centre from the
author of The Habsburgs* Central Europe is not just a space on a map but also a region of
shared experience - of mutual borrowings impositions and misapprehensions. From the Roman
Empire onwards it has been the target of invasion from the east. In the Middle Ages Central
Europeans cast their eastern foes as 'the dogmen'. They would later become the Turks Swedes
Russians and Soviets all of whom pulled the region apart and remade it according to their own
vision. Competition among Europe's Middle Kingdoms yielded repeated cultural effervescences.
This was the first home of the High Renaissance outside Italy the cradle of the Reformation
the starting point of the Enlightenment Romanticism the symphony and modern nationalism. It
was a permanent battleground too for religious and political ideas. Most recent histories of
Central Europe confine themselves to the lands in between Germany and Russia homing in on
Poland Hungary and what is now the Czech Republic. This new history embraces the whole of
Central Europe including the German lands as well as Ukraine and Switzerland. The story of
Europe's Middle Kingdoms is a reminder of Central Europe's precariousness of its creativity
and turbulence and of the common cultural trends that make these lands so distinctive.
