Highlights from the 25-27 1999 conference.

This book shows how current and future research on the social history of the Balkans can be integrated into a broader European framework. The contributions look at a range of methodological and empirical issues, and the theme that links the various studies is that of the contrasting, yet, at the same time, entangled ideas of the Balkans as a "mental map" and of Southeast Europe as an "historical region." (Series: Studies on South East Europe - Vol. 10)

A sweeping history of southeastern Europe from antiquity to the present that reveals it to be a vibrant crossroads of trade, ideas, and religions. We often think of the Balkans as a region beset by turmoil and backwardness, but from late antiquity to the present it has been a dynamic meeting place of cultures and religions. Combining deep insight with narrative flair, The Great Cauldron invites us to reconsider the history of this intriguing, diverse region as essential to the story of global Europe. Marie-Janine Calic reveals the many ways in which southeastern Europe’s position at the crossroads of East and West shaped continental and global developments. The nascent merchant capitalism of the Mediterranean world helped the Balkan knights fight the Ottomans in the fifteenth century. The deep pull of nationalism led a young Serbian bookworm to spark the conflagration of World War I. The late twentieth century saw political Islam spread like wildfire in a region where Christians and Muslims had long lived side by side. Along with vivid snapshots of revealing moments in time, including Krujë in 1450 and Sarajevo in 1984, Calic introduces fascinating figures rarely found in standard European histories. We meet the Greek merchant and poet Rhigas Velestinlis, whose revolutionary pamphlet called for a general uprising against Ottoman tyranny in 1797. And the Croatian bishop Ivan Dominik Stratiko, who argued passionately for equality of the sexes and whose success with women astonished even his friend Casanova. Calic’s ambitious reappraisal expands and deepens our understanding of the ever-changing mixture of peoples, faiths, and civilizations in this much-neglected nexus of empire.

Rapid growth of interest in the research of childhood during the last several decades can be regarded not only as an indicator but also as an important factor in the long-term processes of changes, which have radically transformed history as a scientific discipline. With the growth of the history of childhood as a discipline a series of problems neglected until then has been opened, and along the questions about the new sources and equivalent methods of research. This is especially true for historiography in the South East European countries, where social history and historical anthropology is still marginal. The volume comprises 18 contributions to the topic with authors from all countries of the region, focussing on the 19th and 20th century. Topics like "upbringing of female children in Serbia" or "rural childhoods in mountain regions of Austria and Greece" are as well touched as "children and war" and "children and migration". This is the first volume that provides an international readership with an overall picture on childhood in South Eastern Europe.

Covering all key Eastern European states and their history right up to the collapse of communism, this second edition of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After is a comprehensive political history of Eastern Europe taking in the whole of the century and the geographical area. Focusing on the attempt to create and maintain a functioning democracy, this new edition now: examines events in Bosnia and Herzegovina includes a new consideration of the evolution of the region since the revolutions of 1989–91 surveys the development of a market economy analyzes the realignment of Eastern Europe towards the West details the emergence of organized crime discusses each state individually includes an up-to-date bibliography. Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After provides an accessible introduction to this key area which is invaluable to students of modern and political history.