Nestled in the heart of the “Old Continent”, along the border between Slovenia and the Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, Slovenes in Italy form one of Europe’s national minorities. This volume presents an up-to-date overview of their efforts to preserve their cultural and linguistic heritage and distinctiveness. The Slovene national community in Italy has been affected by profound and at times devastating events, including both World Wars, the fascist period and the lengthy process of defining the border between Italy and Yugoslavia. The collapse of the Berlin Wall, Slovenia’s declaration of independence and the process of globalisation have provided the community with new forms of protection, but also presented it with further challenges associated with adopting its development guidelines. This book is dedicated to researchers on ethnic studies, civil rights activists and politicians dealing with minority and human rights and diversity management, as well as tourists, teachers and students.

Nestled in the heart of the â oeOld Continentâ , along the border between Slovenia and the Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, Slovenes in Italy form one of Europeâ (TM)s national minorities. This volume presents an up-to-date overview of their efforts to preserve their cultural and linguistic heritage and distinctiveness. The Slovene national community in Italy has been affected by profound and at times devastating events, including both World Wars, the fascist period and the lengthy process of defining the border between Italy and Yugoslavia. The collapse of the Berlin Wall, Sloveniaâ (TM)s declaration of independence and the process of globalisation have provided the community with new forms of protection, but also presented it with further challenges associated with adopting its development guidelines. This book is dedicated to researchers on ethnic studies, civil rights activists and politicians dealing with minority and human rights and diversity management, as well as tourists, teachers and students.

'The Brussels Commission has just suspended its senior economist, Bernard Connolly, for writing a book savaging the prospects for a common currency. There are many who now believe he should be lauded as a prophet.' Observer, Editorial, 1 October 1995'Mr. Connolly's longstanding proposition that the foisting of a common currency upon so many disparate nations would end in ruin is getting a much wider hearing...' New York Times, 17 November 2011When first published in 1995, The Rotten Heart of Europe caused outrage and delight - here was a Brussels insider, a senior EU economist, daring to talk openly about the likely pitfalls of European monetary union. Bernard Connolly lost his job at the Commission, but his book was greeted as a profound and persuasive expose of the would-be 'monetary masters of the world.' His brave act of defiance became headline news - and his book a major international bestseller. In a substantial new introduction, Connolly returns to his prophetic account of the double-talk surrounding the efforts of politicians, bankers and bureaucrats to force Europe into a crippling monetary straitjacket. Hidden agendas are laid bare, skulduggery exposed and economic fallacies are skewered, producing a horrifying conclusion. No one who wants to understand the workings of the EU, past, present and future can afford to miss this enthralling and deeply disturbing book.

An Economist and Sunday Times Best Book of the Year “Deserves to be hailed as a magnum opus.” —Tom Holland, The Telegraph “Ambitious...seeks to rehabilitate the Holy Roman Empire’s reputation by re-examining its place within the larger sweep of European history...Succeeds splendidly in rescuing the empire from its critics.” —Wall Street Journal Massive, ancient, and powerful, the Holy Roman Empire formed the heart of Europe from its founding by Charlemagne to its destruction by Napoleon a millennium later. An engine for inventions and ideas, with no fixed capital and no common language or culture, it derived its legitimacy from the ideal of a unified Christian civilization—though this did not prevent emperors from clashing with the pope for supremacy. In this strikingly ambitious book, Peter H. Wilson explains how the Holy Roman Empire worked, why it was so important, and how it changed over the course of its existence. The result is a tour de force that raises countless questions about the nature of political and military power and the legacy of its offspring, from Nazi Germany to the European Union. “Engrossing...Wilson is to be congratulated on writing the only English-language work that deals with the empire from start to finish...A book that is relevant to our own times.” —Brendan Simms, The Times “The culmination of a lifetime of research and thought...an astonishing scholarly achievement.” —The Spectator “Remarkable...Wilson has set himself a staggering task, but it is one at which he succeeds heroically.” —Times Literary Supplement

The image of Poland has once again been impressed on European consciousness. Norman Davies provides a key to understanding the modern Polish crisis in this lucid and authoritative description of the nation's history. Beginning with the period since 1945, he travels back in time to highlight the long-term themes and traditions which have influenced present attitudes. His evocative account reveals Poland as the heart of Europe in more than the geographical sense. It is a country where Europe's ideological conflicts are played out in their most acute form: as recent events have emphasized, Poland's fate is of vital concern to European civilization as a whole. This revised and updated edition tackles and analyses the issues arising from the fall of the Eastern Block, and looks at Poland's future within a political climate of democracy and free market.

From WW II until the Velvet Revolution, few outside anthropologists had access to Czechoslovakia, while only a handful of Czech and Slovak ethnologists published in Western journals. In recent years, anthropological interest in Slovakia and the Czech Republic has increased substantially. This volume brings together a broad sample of recent cutting-edge ethnographic studies by Czech and Slovak ethnographers as well as American and western European anthropologists. Contents: Raymond June on measuring “corruption” in Czech society; David Karjanen on structural violence and economic change in Slovakia; Karen Kapusta-Pofahl, Hana Hašková, and Marta Kolářová on women’s civic organizing; Rebecca Nash on Czech feelings about social support and welfare reform; Denise Kozikowski on women’s experience of breast cancer; Věra Sokolová on population policy and the sterilization of Romani women in Czechoslovakia, 1972-1989; James Quin on pornography and the commodification of queer bodies in Slovakia; Ben Hill Passmore on working women in a Moravian factory; Krista Hegburg on Roma social workers; Zdeněk Uherek and Kateřina Plochová on ethnic Czechs in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Leoš Šatava on ethnic identity and language among Sorbian youth; Haldis Haukanes on history and autobiography in a Czech village; Davide Torsello on memory, geography, and local history in southern Slovakia; Peter Skalník reviews Czech and Slovak community (re)studies in a European context. Afterword by Zdeněk Salzmann.

The quasi-federal European Union stands out as the major exception in the thinly institutionalized world of international politics. Something has led Europeans--and only Europeans--beyond the nation-state to a fundamentally new political architecture. Craig Parsons argues in A Certain Idea of Europe that this "something" was a particular set of ideas generated in Western Europe after the Second World War. In Parsons's view, today's European Union reflects the ideological (and perhaps visionary) project of an elite minority. His book traces the progressive victory of this project in France, where the battle over European institutions erupted most divisively. Drawing on archival research and extensive interviews with French policymakers, the author carefully traces a fifty-year conflict between radically different European plans. Only through aggressive leadership did the advocates of a supranational "community" Europe succeed at building the EU and binding their opponents within it. Parsons puts the causal impact of ideas, and their binding effects through institutions, at the center of his book. In so doing he presents a strong logic of "social construction"--a sharp departure from other accounts of EU history that downplay the role of ideas and ideology.