Contents -- Introduction: Where Is Central Europe? -- 1 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 -- 2 Feudal Foundations, 1000-1350 -- 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 -- 3 The Great Late Medieval Kingdoms: Poland and Hungary, 1350-1500 -- 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 -- 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 -- 5 The Counter-Reformation: The Roman Catholic Church and the Habsburg Dynasty Triumphant, 1550-1700 -- 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 -- 6 Absolutism as Enlightenment, 1700-1790 -- 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 -- 7 Nations Without States, States Without Nations, 1790-1848 -- The Partitions of Poland, 1772-1795.

Central European 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 -- The "Springtime of Nations": The Revolutions of 1848 -- The Prussian Unification of Germany, 1866-1871 -- Imperial German Geography: Mitteleuropa -- 9 World War I and National Self-Determination, 1914-1922 -- 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 -- 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" -- 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 -- Revolutions and Reforms: 1956, 1968, and 1980-1981 -- The Idea of Central Europe -- The Gorbachev Factor -- Epilogue: Postrevolutionary Paradoxes: Central Europe Since 1989 -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.