The scholarly analysis of ethnic cleansing and forced migration has progressed substantially since the discomforting return of these phenomena during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. David Gerlach, professor of history at St. Peter's University, focuses on a specific aspect of these processes. The replacement of local populations always contains an economic dimension. The author demonstrates this through an examination of the historic Bohemian borderlands also known as Sudetenland, whose German-speaking majority of approximately three million was largely expelled in the aftermath of World War II.

Gerlach defines ethnic cleansing as a transformative force driven by migration and property transfers as much as by violence and nation-state goals. The ethnic restructuring of postwar Czechoslovakia was based on a series of presidential decrees against nationally unreliable populations, which included most of the ethnic Germans and Hungarians in the country. At every stage, economic considerations permeated both planning and implementation. Confiscated German property provided the means to finance the large-scale resettlement and served as the foremost incentive to draw new settlers to the area.

These settlers played a vital role in the transformation by dispossessing local Germans. In 1945, arrivals matched departures. By August, the number of Czechs in the borderlands had almost tripled to 1.2 million. In the beginning, this process occurred almost spontaneously, with settlers flocking to the most desirable locations and taking over as national administrators of German homes and businesses. By 1946, the influx of newcomers had slowed down and become more organized. A Settlement Office in Prague promoted this migration with publications, exhibitions, and policy planning. Quick resettlement was considered essential to ensure that the Germans would never be able to return. Therefore, German antifascists also had to be removed from the area, together with physical reminders of the historic German presence.

Although the Czechization of the borderlands was a cross-party project, the Communists managed to secure a central position in it. The party promoted the cheap reallocation of confiscated property. As a result, it already gained more than 50 percent of the vote in most border districts in 1946, far exceeding its countrywide share. The confiscation of German-owned plants also eased the transition to state ownership that was promoted primarily, but not exclusively, by the Communists. The availability of such a large body of repossessed enterprises kickstarted a nationalization process that ultimately transformed ownership conditions throughout Czechoslovakia. In many ways, the path to state socialism ran through the borderlands.

The nationalized enterprises failed to fulfill their promise. The small-scale production that had characterized the area never returned. Much of the skilled workforce could not be replaced. The once prosperous borderlands began to decline. By the 1950s, the government even came to terms with the continuing presence of local Germans and offered citizenship to qualifying applicants. Thus, the previous majority had turned into a small, but officially recognized, ethnic minority in its traditional home districts. By that time, many of the remaining approximately 160,000 Germans would have preferred to emigrate.

The Economy of Ethnic Cleansing shows the complexity of population replacement in postwar Czechoslovakia and dispels the notion of a monolithic Czech populace burning to take revenge on the Germans. It portrays the rifts between different political agendas, as well as between Czechs who already lived in the borderlands and the new arrivals from the interior. Paradoxically, resettlement did not even make the borderlands as homogenous as its planners had hoped. Returning Czechs from abroad may have become reintegrated more easily, but economic and political pressures also brought many Slovaks, Roma, and even Hungarians to the area.

The book's foremost contribution lies in its economic angle. Population exchanges of the scale undertaken at the end of World War II would have been all but impossible without the abundance of repossessed property. Only a minority of the colonists were driven primarily by a consuming urge to make the borderlands Czech. Many more left their previous homes for the unique opportunities available in an economically advanced area about to be cleared of its previous inhabitants. At times, Gerlach's desire to prove his thesis inclines him to downplay alternative motives. His core argument on the economy of ethnic replacement, however, is both cogently argued and convincing. This makes his new study an essential addition to the growing literature on the history of forced migration.