Synopsis: This historical survey of Central Europe covers a region that encompasses contemporary Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, and Croatia. Author Lonnie R Johnson illuminates the competing religious, cultural, economic, national, and ideological interests that have driven the history of Central Europe in the past millennium. Each chapter is thematically organized around issues or events that are key to developing an appreciation for the historical and political dynamics of the region, particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This third edition also contains a new concluding chapter and epilogue and several redesigned and updated maps.

Includes maps of: [Central Europe]; Geographic Zones; Roman West and Central Europe, 400-1000; Greatest Colonial Achievement in History - the German Resettlement of the East from the 12th to the 14th Centuries; Central Europe, ca. 1500; Ottoman Threat, 1526-1683; German Culture and Its Influence; Central European States after World War I; Nazi Germany and Central Europe, 1938-1942; Europe Divided, 1945-1949; Military and Economic Blocs, 1955-1989; Central Europe in Transition, 1989-1996; Central Europe in Transition, 1996-2007.

Preface -- Introduction: Where is Central Europe? -- Central Europe And The Roman Christian West, 400-1000 -- Romans and Barbarians: Christians and Pagans -- Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Islamic Empires: Charlemagne, Byzantium, and the rise of the Ottomans -- Feudal Foundations, 1000-1350 -- Disunited German Empire -- Austrian, Bohemian, Hungarian, and Polish Dynasties -- Bohemia's imperial bid: King Otakar's thirteenth-century empire -- German "Drive to the East", 1200-1350 -- Stemming the German tide? The battle of Grunwald -- Great Late Medieval Kingdoms: Poland And Hungary, 1350-1500 -- Wedding of Poland and Lithuania, 1386 -- Greatest Hungarian King: the reign of Matthias I, 1458-1490 -- Empire building at the altar: Habsburg marital diplomacy, 1477-1515 -- Bulwarks Of Christendom: Religion And Warfare, 1400-1550 -- Crack in the foundation: Jan Hus and the Bohemian precedent -- Western Christianity divided: the reformation -- Western Christianity threatened: the rise of the Ottomans' European empire -- Counter-Reformation: The Roman Catholic Church And The Habsburg Dynasty Triumphant, 1550-1700 -- Breaking Bohemia's back: the battle of white mountain -- Winners and losers: the peace of Westphalia -- Defeating the Infidel, or Poland saves the West: lifting the Turkish siege of Vienna 1683 -- Consolidation of the Habsburg Empire -- Absolutism As Enlightenment, 1700-1790 -- Triangular conflict in the East: Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, and Russia -- Polish Paradox: freedom without "enlightenment" -- Frederick the Great and Prussian pathology -- Russia's westward turn: Peter the great and Catherine the Great -- Habsburg Enlightenment: Maria Theresia and Joseph II -- Nations Without States, States Without Nations, 1790-1848 -- Partitions of Poland, 1772-1795 -- Central European soul: Volksgeist --From nations to nationalisms -- Politics of language -- Jewish question -- Demise Of Imperial Austria And The Rise Of Imperial Germany, 1848-1890 -- Springtime of nations: the revolutions of 1848 -- Prussian unification of Germany, 1866-1871 -- Imperial German geography: Mitteleuropa -- World War I And National Self-Determination, 1914-1922 -- Austria-Hungary: the "prison of nations", 1914-1918 -- Resurrection of Poland, 1918-1922 -- Dictating peace and drawing borders: the treaties of Versailles, St Germain, and Trianon, 1919-1920 -- Spheres Of Influence I: Germany And The Soviet Union -- 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 -- Spheres Of Influence II: East And West, Or "Yalta Europe" -- Polish problem, 1939-1945 -- Yalta: bungling or betrayal? -- Making of Eastern Europe, 1945-1948 -- Dividing German, 1949 -- Staring the cold war -- Failure Of Eastern Europe, 1948-1989. -- Communist party-state and state-economy -- Revolutions and reforms: 1956, 1968, 1980-81 -- Idea of Central Europe -- Gorbachev factor -- Revolutions Of 1989 And Their Aftermaths. -- Transitions: in theory -- Central Europe as a political project -- European Union and NATO step in -- Reascendant nationalism and the fall of Yugoslavia -- Making democracies and markets -- Winners and losers -- Epilogue: Old Europe, New Europe, and Central Europe since 9/11 -- Notes -- Index.