Following the end of the Cold War and European Union enlargement, in what sense does Eastern Europe continue to exist as a meaningful geo-political concept? In addressing this question, contributors to this volume Alex Cistelecan, Robert Bideleux, Katalin Miklossy and Dieter Segert tease out the implications for an Area Studies approach to the region. They examine its contradictory situation within discourses of orientalisation: on one hand, posited as the underdeveloped pendant to its western neighbours; on the other, largely Christian by religion and an integral part of a continent that...