Throughout the Cold War era, the Iron Curtain divided Central Europe into a Communist East and a democratic West, and we grew accustomed to looking at this part of the world in bipolar ideological terms. Yet many people living on both sides of the Iron Curtain considered themselves Central Europeans, and the idea of Central Europe was one of the driving forces behind the revolutionary year of 1989 as well as the deterioration of Yugoslavia and its ensuing wars.
Central Europe provides a broad overview and comparative analysis of key events in a historical region that encompasses...

This historical survey of Central Europe covers a region that encompasses contemporary Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, and Croatia. Author Lonnie R. Johnson illuminates the competing religious, cultural, economic, national, and ideological interests that have driven the history of Central Europe in the past millennium. Each chapter is thematically organized around issues or events that are key to developing an appreciation for the historical and political dynamics of the region, particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This third...