The book is the first comprehensive empirical study of transport infrastructure in two
socialist countries in the years 1945-1989. In the case study of Yugoslavia the construction
of roads was interrelated with building socialist and trans-ethnic identities uniting all
federal republics. In practice the "Brotherhood and Unity Highway" was an artery linking the
capitals of the most industrialized republics neglecting Kosovo Bosnia and Herzegovina
Montenegro and parts of Macedonia. In socialist Bulgaria existed a clear ideological link
between transport and nation building. Bulgarian roads' disintegrative function was best seen
in the example of the "Highway Ring" which constructed as an inner circle isolated the border
regions and areas inhabited by Bulgarian Muslims and Turks.
