This textbook, included in the Routledge Histories series and conceptualized for students of the history of modern East Central Europe, undertakes the history of the region from 1700 to the present, aiming to contribute to the understanding of the area's past “to comprehend its unfolding, often unsettled, present” (2). It consists of an introduction, coauthored by the editors, and ten articles by historians from across Europe, Great Britain, and the United States. The editors state that this book follows an open-ended definition of East Central Europe, which also encompasses countries that have influenced the primary area under analysis. Unfortunately, however, they do not specify which countries comprise this area, stating only that the volume focuses on those that were under the rule of the Ottoman, Habsburg, Prussian, or Russian empires or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (2–3). This approach is thus in the tradition of the conceptualizations of East Central Europe of Oskar Halecki (Borderlands of Western Civilization: A History of East Central Europe [New York, 1952]; The Limits and Divisions of European History [New York, 1950]) and Paul Robert Magocsi (Historical Atlas of East Central Europe [Toronto, 1993]; Historical Atlas of Central Europe [Toronto, 2002]).

In the first chapter, James Koranyi and Bernhard Struck define East Central Europe, subsuming twenty-one states under the term. With the help of Charles Maier's concept of “regimes of territoriality,” they analyze the comings and goings of the various empires, their influences on the region, the emergence of nation-states, and the constantly changing borders. In their opinion, the history of East Central Europe has proven that “regimes of territoriality may shift, but they do not cease to matter” (67). This view is confirmed by the simmering Russo-Ukrainian conflict in the Donbas and the Russian annexation of the Crimea in 2014. Jacek Kochanowicz (d. 2014) and Bogdan Murgescu discuss the region's economic development. Although the term “backwardness” is controversial and may also be partly culturally constructed, for the authors it is beyond dispute that in East Central Europe “economic backwardness has been real and not invented” (112). The area has always been closely connected to the “West,” and its modernization process followed Western patterns. Furthermore, the authors stress the long-term prevalence of traditional social structures and the high degree of institutional discontinuity.

Theodora Dragostinova and David Gerlach draw attention to the population movements that run like a constant thread through the history of the region. Communities that were ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse during the era of empires were increasingly homogenized after the emergence of nation-states. Today's politicians like to forget it, but the history of East Central Europe has always been shaped by migration. Joel Brady and Edin Hajdarpasic show the importance of ethnic, national, and religious identifications in the Ottoman Empire, the Habsburg monarchy, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and their successor states, but they also refer to the influence of intra-European and transatlantic migration on ethnicity and religion in East Central Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Irina Livezeanu, Thomas Ort, and Alex Drace-Francis cover the region's cultures, especially its literary cultures. They thoroughly demonstrate how the production of cultural works have been the harbinger or the reaction of social and political tendencies. Nineteenth-century men of letters often became “founding fathers” (258) of desired nations, a trend that continued into the twentieth century but came to a slow halt with the fall of communism in East Central Europe.

It should be emphasized that the book has its own chapter devoted to women's and gender history. Krassimira Daskalova and Susan Zimmermann focus on education; work and social politics; law and citizenship; empire, nation, and ethnicity; gendered scripts of sexualities and intimate relationships; and women's activism and feminist social movements. Echoing the volume's chapter on economic history, they argue that backwardness—material scarcity, specifically—has had a particularly detrimental effect on women in East Central Europe. Ulf Brunnbauer and Paul Hanebrink reflect on political ideologies and movements during the nineteenth century and up to World War II. They first compare the Habsburg, Ottoman, and Romanov imperial reforms during this period, finding that they followed similar rationales. The authors then show, for example, how nationalism or workers’ movements that shaped the countries before World War II remained relevant for communist policies after 1945. Malgorzata Fidelis and Irina Gigova essentially provide a summary of the current state of Anglophone research on communism in Eastern Europe. Before each section of their chapter, they present important research questions that can serve as stimuli for readers. Reinhard Heinisch's contribution focuses on party politics and the role of the European Union in East Central Europe after 1989. He recalls the region's “return to Europe” and poses the question of whether current European Union member states should welcome refugees or rather continue building “fortress Europe.” Patrice M. Dabrowski and Stefan Troebst close the book with a chapter on the “Uses and Abuses of the Past” since the eighteenth century, analyzing commemorations and representations before World War I, in the period leading up to communism, and the politics of history and cultures of remembrance during communism. Their contribution clearly demonstrates how the past has been used to legitimize or delegitimize a current regime.

This is a commendable textbook for students: individual chapters can be read independently of one another, and each chapter ends with references and recommendations for in-depth reading. Moreover, the book includes eleven maps, eight figures, sixteen tables, and an index. While the respective geographical specializations of the authors are evident, an effort is made to cover all countries to show the major evolutions in East Central Europe. The volume's chief limitation is that it primarily reflects the Anglophone state of research, only partially and inadequately representing East Central European historiographic perspectives. Nevertheless, the editors have succeeded in publishing an easily readable, well-organized overview that covers the main ideas, structures, and developments of this area. It is a worthwhile read for students and scholars of East Central Europe.