Central Europe Enemies, Neighbors, Friends

by Johnson, Lonnie R.

• ISBN13: 9780195148268
• ISBN10: 0195148266
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-08-16
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This historical survey of Central Europe covers a region that encompasses contemporary Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, and Croatia. Now in its second edition, Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends contains a new epilogue-updated to cover eventssince 1995-and several redesigned or updated maps. Each chapter is thematically organized around issues or events that are important in helping students develop an understanding of the region's internal dynamics. Johnson illuminates the competing religious, cultural, economic, national, andideological interests that have driven the history of Central Europe. Thorough, objective, and focused, Johnson's work stands out as both a useful core text covering an area of growing interest and a brilliant account of a region that is only just beginning to receive the attention itdeserves.

Author Biography

Lonnie Johnson has taught at a variety of institutions in Vienna and Austria, and has traveled extensively throughout Central Europe.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Introduction: Where Is Central Europe?	3	(10)
Central Europe and the Roman Christian West, 400-1000	13	(14)
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	27	(18)
The Disunited German Empire
Austrian, Bohemian, Hungarian, and Polish Dynasties
Bohemia's Imperial Bid: King Otakar's Thirteenth-Century Empire
The German ``Drive to the East,'' 1200-1350
Stemming the German Tide? The Battle of Grunwald
The Great Late Medieval Kingdoms: Poland and Hungary, 1350-1500	45	(19)
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
The Bulwarks of Christendom: Religion and Warfare, 1400-1550	64	(21)
The 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
The Counter-Reformation: The Roman Catholic Church and the Habsburg Dynasty Triumphant, 1550-1700	85	(18)
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 Habsburg Empire
Absolutism as Enlightenment, 1700-1790	103	(21)
Triangular Conflict in the East: 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
Habsburg Enlightenment: Maria Theresia and Joseph II
Nations Without States, States Without Nations, 1790-1848	124	(25)
The Partitions of Poland, 1772-1795
Central European Soul: Volksgeist
From Nations to Nationalisms
The Politics of Language
The ``Jewish Question''
The Demise of Imperial Austria and the Rise of Imperial Germany, 1848-1890	149	(22)
The ``Springtime of Nations'': The Revolutions of 1848
The Prussian Unification of Germany, 1866-1871
Imperial German Geography: Mitteleuropa
World War I and National Self-Determination, 1914-1922	171	(26)
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
Spheres of Influence I: Germany and the Soviet Union	197	(26)
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''	223	(26)
The Polish Problem, 1939-1945
Yalta: Bungling or Betrayal?
The Making of Eastern Europe, 1945-1948
Dividing Germany, 1949
Starting the Cold War
The Failure of Eastern Europe, 1956-1989	249	(26)
Revolutions and Reforms: 1956, 1968, and 1980-1981
The Idea of Central Europe
The Gorbachev Factor
Epilogue: Postrevolutionary Paradoxes: Central Europe Since 1989	275	(34)
Notes	309	(18)
Index	327