Wanderungen und Kulturaustausch im östlichen Mitteleuropa is the first volume of a new series, Völker, Staaten und Kulturen in Ostmitteleuropa, sponsored by the Herder Institute, Germany's oldest research establishment for the study of the culture and history of East Central Europe. The volume is a compilation of papers given at two conferences in the late 1990s dedicated to issues of cultural exchange and migration. Chronological coverage ranges from the thirteenth to the twentieth centuries, whereas geographically the essays examine regions of East Central Europe that fall within the remit of the Herder Institute, which to the detriment of the volume unfortunately does not include the Hungarian lands. Thematically, the articles consciously steer away from major themes of the period such as the Renaissance and Reformation and, instead, focus on a set of issues independent of periodization. Two major topics predominate: migration and the movement of peoples and cultural transfer and exchange.

Articles within the first category range widely. Chronologically, they begin with Andrzej Janeczek's close examination of colonization in the borderlands of Red Ruthenia. Janeczek investigates changing patterns of settlement and how they contributed to the remarkable ethnic diversity of the region that developed in the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. At the other end of the spectrum are two essays examining the complicated nature of urban development in the twentieth century. Anna Veronika Wendland's short contribution outlines a broader comparative project between Vilnius and L'viv. whereas Georg Strobel presents a much longer overview chronicling the development of Poland's great textile center, Łódź, with a specific focus on its multiethnic character. In between are two studies, one tracking the movement of students and scholars in the early modern period and the other following patterns of nineteenth-century Jewish emigration from the Grand Duchy of Posen.

The essays of the second category vary just as widely. Klaus Garber presents an intriguing “Reisebericht” as he traces the path of early modern German books through the libraries of the region with an emphasis on those outside modern-day Germany and Austria. An enterprising graduate student would surely find here the start to a fascinating project. In the volume's nod to art history, Arnold Bartetzky considers the reception of Dutch mannerist architecture in Danzig. For the modern period. there are short articles examining technology transfer in Prussia and the impact of German on the Polish language. In one of the strongest contributions of the volume, Dietmar Willoweit considers legal matters in the early modern period. Willoweit challenges a historiography that considers the evolution of legal traditions in East Central Europe as a question of the expansion and influence of German law. In contrast, he introduces the notion of ius commune as he follows three examples from Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary to help explain the common roots and varying trajectories of the region's legal conventions.

Standing alone most of the essays are successful; however, when the essays are considered collectively, Wanderungen und Kulturaustausch suffers from the weaknesses of its genre, the edited conference volume. The chronological spread to my mind is problematic. Apart from one essay shining as a lone beacon onto the high Middle Ages, there are essentially two major clusters of articles. These are evenly split between the early modern and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Hartmut Boockmann argues in the introduction that such a range can often be advantageous. For example, scholars who study migration patterns of the early modern period can draw from the insights of those who have examined the great displacement of East Central Europeans in the twentieth century. Were this volume more tightly organized around one central theme, Boockmann's observation would have greater merit. It is more difficult to justify this position with such a diverse collection of articles. The essays are also uneven in terms of length and coverage. The shortest barely reaches seven pages, whereas the longest rolls on for sixty. Additionally, the editor failed to apply uniform standards for the scholarly apparatus. A number of important essays are not annotated at all. Some of the articles provide a short bibliography. Others do not. There is no general index. For a project that took nearly a decade from conference to publication, this lack of editorial oversight is troubling.