In The Lands Between, Alexander V. Prusin seeks to explain how the years 1914 to 1953 came to be so wracked with conflict in what he terms the “‘classic’ borderlands” of Eastern Europe, given the relative peace that preceded them. The borderlands of the title range dauntingly from the Baltic region to present-day Moldova, although both their western and eastern borders seem fluid: For example, certain maps include both western Galicia (in the pre-1914 period) and even the entirety of the General Government (during World War II). It is a large swath of territory representing enormous ethnic and religious heterogeneity, not to mention the experience of life under different empires in the nineteenth century. The author curiously sidesteps any references to the enormous literature on borderlands, although the book is not bereft of other conceptual nods (such as to the theories of Miroslav Hroch and other scholars of nationalism). He also pays more than the usual attention to psychological and emotional issues connected with the experience of violence.

The author has read the relevant secondary literature (some of it rather old, however) on this vast space in an impressive number of languages: English, German, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Polish. The list of countries where Prusin consulted archives is even longer and more global. Still, the intent of the book was to be synthetic. In that case, one expects interregional comparisons to be drawn and overall patterns to emerge. Whereas the former appear only at the chapter level (little is done with them in the conclusion), the latter most certainly are highlighted throughout.

Indeed, the author concentrates more on the overall picture in his quest to explain the terrible level of violence during those years, which he claims did not stem from any “particular propensity to violence” in the borderlands (257). Prusin see states (which he equates, in the field, with their agents and institutions, including armies) throughout as the instigators of violence. Initially war was declared by the previously peaceful imperial states of Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia. Under harsh conditions of war and occupation, the first unmixing of peoples was attempted. In the immediate wake of the war, violence ignited among the diverse populations, as people of various nationalities strove to establish the frontiers of the new states. These antagonisms festered in the interwar period, as the new putative nation-states considered it their mandate to favor the “titular” nation within. This tinderbox was ignited again by a second wave of world war, the big regional players now being Nazi Germany and the USSR. What ensued was even more destructive violence, analyzed in four chapters. Prusin singles out 1939–41 as the first phase of redrawing ethnosocial boundaries (the second phase being 1944–53, which gets its own chapter). Two chapters deal thematically with the years 1941–44. The first covers the Holocaust and collaboration, while the second covers what Prusin entitles “the civil wars.” The final substantive chapter covers 1953 to 1992.

As is to be expected in a book of this scope, specialists will quibble with certain details and certain interpretations. Prusin is strongest in dealing with the periods of war. Those interested in violence in the East European borderlands may find it instructive to read Prusin's book alongside Timothy Snyder's more polished Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (New York: Basic Books, 2010).

The proofreading and, especially, the editing of Prusin's book seem to have been minimal—not what one would expect from Oxford University Press. Clearly the author is not a native English speaker (routinely misplaced or absent articles being a dead giveaway), although his vocabulary does not lack sophistication (nonetheless, the word “penultimate” is misused repeatedly). A stronger editorial hand could have made the book more of a pleasure to read. At times the prose confuses more than enlightens.

Habsburg scholars may find some of its faults glaring. Chapter 1 is marred by careless mistakes. For example, the peasant jacquerie of 1846 in Galicia is repeatedly placed in the wrong year. Prusin fails to distinguish between the medieval kingdom of Galicia and the Habsburg invention of the same name, which would cause uninformed readers (say, nonspecialist readers of the Zones of Violence series) to suspect that territorially they were equivalent. Klaipėda/Memel is in Lithuania not Latvia. Furthermore, his approach to national identity is redolent of the no longer fashionable “awakening” trope. Despite these weaknesses, the author's explanation of how various ethnic/national groups ended up joining in the violence initiated by state actors offers some interesting insights.