Being “European” seems to be a simple notion to describe a regional identity, yet as this edited reader illustrates, it is fraught with conceptual dilemmas. The focus is on Europe's “eastern” as distinct from its “western” half. In his introduction, Johan Fornäs signals these complexities and a framework within which to examine how being European is identified in its eastern half. Several interdisciplinary cases are offered with which to evaluate the European Commission's (EC) search for a universal/cultural and new narrative, which “could offer a source of nourishment and supply for Europe's social and political body” (5). The EC's “New Narrative” (2014) is founded on a more historic “master narrative” that postulates the vanquishing of past, bloody divisions and the achievement of rooted, shared values (peace, freedom, democracy, legal supremacy). These are the common friends of Europeanness. The book's theme is, however, the salience and recognition of national/sub-regional influences and external (global) interests that challenge any conceptual unity through the powerful presence of differing identities.

Fornäs identifies distinct historical constructions of eastern and western narratives of what it is to be European, through religious and later 20^th century ideological divisions. This was challenged, post-1989, as western and eastern Europe redefined/re-oriented historical and cultural experiences through an adherence to the authority of an EU center. However, there remains the persistence of historic myths/values and contemporary cultural spaces capable of sustaining non-EU derived, European identities.

What follows are six chapters, varying in degrees of accessibility and relevance, that illustrate eastern and western narrations of being European. Carl Cederberg outlines a philosophical history of European identity that presents the trope of Europe as a specific cradle of universal philosophical thought. He focuses on the Czech phenomenologist Jan Paločka, who presents European universalism as “care for the soul,” a trope that influenced Charter 77 and Václav Havel. Cederberg, however, recognizes the problem of a yawning gap between such universality as an ideal and collective/individual identities that may contradict such values. A chapter by Stefan Jonsson examines Soviet and East German narratives that critiqued notions of (west) European integration, as the very lack of “care for the soul,” in a European project with a secret colonialist agenda disguised as a benevolent peace mission. Cold War narratives have a resonance today, argues Jonsson, evident in the geopolitical struggles between Russian and EU/east European narratives, both of which present very uncertain and unstable views of European futures.

The chapter by Roman Horbyk utilizes news media content to reveal a divergence between Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish projections of “the Ukraine crisis.” Different foci emerge with the Russian media focusing on the EU's internal problems; Ukrainian media on pro-western sources, encapsulating the crisis as a clash of positive (EU) and negative (Russian) values; and the Polish media who report on the problem of the EU as an institutional interlocutor. Though prone to overstatement, the author does make the important point that the concept of “Europe” functions as a semantically empty trope and concludes, with Jonsson, that there is a continuity in Soviet/Russian narratives that contrast a progressive conceptualization of Europe “that seeks to banish this spirit in a hopeless longing to restore tradition and turn the tide of history” (125). A fifth chapter by Anne Kaun examines the narratives associated with the Occupy movement in Sweden and Latvia between 2011–12. She points to an absence of a European narrative in the media of these countries that contrasts with the Europe-critical stance of the Occupy protesters themselves. The chapter offers only a limited perspective on differential European narratives, given its concentration on Occupy, which is for the most part a globalist discourse. It also lacks the broader comparative perspective that may have given it more salience to the book's objective.

The penultimate and final chapters are better placed as a commentary on east/west narrative differentiation. Illustrating her arguments through art curation between 2009–11, diversity, suggests Katarina Wadstein MacLeod, reinforces, rather than evincing, the cultural European art “We.” The problem would seem to be escaping from the past, either in relation to the nature/subject of the curated art projects, or the assumption by “western” curators that the east is seen as peripheral to the dominant western center. Thus a center-periphery perspective that underscores eastern cultural otherness is one interpretation of this “nostalgia.” Finally, the European Song Contest (ESC) is analyzed for its role in narrating Europe by the book's editor Johan Fornäs. Here he reflects on the contest, identifying a master narrative of optimism and redemption for Europe that has struggled out of a near catastrophe during the first half of the 20^th century. East European contributions are described as hybridizations of “own voice” and contributions to a universal European experience. However, they dwell less in rejoicing Europe's historic/cultural treasures, stressing instead a desire for a share in western democratic, economic, political, and wealth resources. Fornäs sees a clear reflection of both the cultural ideals of the Renaissance and cosmopolitanism contained in the European Commission's document “New Narratives for Europe 2014” (230).

A focus on narrating Europe through a series of cultural studies reveals an intricate and diverse arena for analysis; the bifurcation of eastern and western narratives produces stereotypical conclusions but also reveals a complex of individual/community identity formation that competes with shared ideals of “Europeanness.” A stereotypical dualism is persistent and is reinforced by a homogenization of both eastern and western narratives, especially evident in media discourse. Beneath this is a complex geo–political difference within eastern perspectives, best illustrated in the “Ukrainian crisis” (see chapter 4). Is eastern Europe as much a construct of western European stereotypes, however, as a product of continuing Cold War narratives and the conceptualization of a western center and an eastern pre-modern periphery? The universal narrative of Europe, reinforced by the institutional structures of the EU, remains a powerful and centralizing statement of Europeanness. Institutionalized EU narratives, however, especially the requirement for acquiescence to EU directives and regulation, must be seen as separated from European idealism and universalism. A complicated interpretation/ordering of these values through complex mediated narration shape eastern and western European identity formation and challenges the EU, and thus the successful notion of a (EU)ropean demos. Counter narratives, especially in the notion of Russian/Eurasian perspectives, a reaction to the EU itself, present alternative futures and geo-political diversity in the interpretation of what it is to be an (east) European. Though sometimes jargonistic, the chapters make worthy contributions to a much debated phenomenon: what it is to be European.