CONTENTS

Preface    ix
Introduction: Where Is Central Europe?    3

1 Central Europe and the Roman Christian West, 400-1000    13

Romans and Barbarians: Christians and Pagans Roman CatholiG Eastern Orthodox, and IslamicEmpires:
Charlemagne, Byzantium, and the Rise of the Ottomans

2    Feudal Foundations, 1000-1350    27

TheDisunited GermanEmpire
Austrian, Bohemian, Hungarian, and PolishDynasties
Bohemia's Imperial Bid: King Otakar's Thirteenth-Century Empire
The German "Drive to theEast, " 1200-1350
Stemming the German Tide? The Battle of Grunwald

3 The Great Late Medieval Kingdoms: Poland and
Hungary, 1350-1500    45

The Wedding of Poland and Lithuania, 1386
The Greatest Hungarian King: The Reign of Matthias I, 1458-1490
Empire Building at the Altar: Habsburg Marital Diplomacy,
1477-1515

4 The Bulwarks of Christendom: Religion and Warfare,
1400-1550    64

The Crack in the Foundation: Jan Hus and the Bohemian Precedent
Western ChristianityDivided: TheReformation
Western Christianity Threatened: The Rise of the Ottomans'
European Empire

5 The Counter-Reformation: The Roman Catholic Church and
the Habsburg Dynasty Triumphant, 1550-1700    85

Breaking Bohemia 's Back: The Battle of White Mountain, 1620
Winners and Losers: The Peace of Westphalia, 1648
Defeating the Infidel, or Poland Saves the West: Lifting the Turkish
Siege of Vienna, 1683
The Consolidation of the HabsburgEmpire

6    Absolutism as Enlightenment, 1700-1790    103

Triangular Conflict in theEast: Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, and
Russia
The Polish Paradox: Freedom Without "Enlightenment"
Frederick the Great and Prussian Pathology
Russia's Westward Turn: Peter the Great and Catherine the Great
HabsburgEnlightenment: Maria Theresia andJoseph II

7    Nations Without States, States Without Nations, 1790- 1848    124
The Partitions of Poland, 1772-1795
Central Luropean Soul: Volksgeist
From Nations to Nationalisms
The Politics of Language
The "Jewish Question"                   
8    The Demise of Imperial Austria and the Rise of
Imperial Germany, 1848-1890    149   
The "Springtime of Nations ". The Revolutions of 1848       
ThePrussian Unification of Germany, 1866-1871       
Imperial German Geography: Mitteleuropa
9    World War I and National Self-Determination,
1914-1922    171

Austria-Hungary: The "Prison of Nations, "
1914-1918
The Resurrection of Poland, 1918-1922
Dictating Peace and Drawing Borders: The Treaties of
Versailles, St. Germain, and Trianon, 1919-1920

10 Spheres of Influence I: Germany and the Soviet Union    197
German-Soviet Cooperation: The Spirit of Rapallo,       
1922-1933
Hitler's Foreign Policy: From the Revision of Versailles
to the Nonaggression Pact with Stalin, 1933-1939
Space, Race, and Nazi Germany's New European
Order, 1939-1945

11 Spheres of Influence II: East and West, or
 “Yalta Europe”    223

The Polish Problem, 1939-1945

Yalta: Bungling or Betrayal ?
The Making of Eastern Europe, 1945-1948 Dividing Germany, 1949 Starting the Cold War

12 The Failure of Eastern Europe, 1956-1989    249
Revolutions and Reforms: 1956, 1968, and 1980-1981
The Idea of Central Europe
The Gorbachev Factor

Epilogue: Postrevolutionary Paradoxes:
Central Europe Since 1989    275
Notes    309
Index    327