Central intelligence
BBC History UK|May 2023
JONATHAN KWAN is swept along by a colourful and authoritative exploration of Europe's geographic heartland
JONATHAN KWAN
Central intelligence

Exactly where and what is central Europe? In his new book, Martyn Rady takes a fluid, pragmatic approach to this subject, wandering many byways around the core area of the Holy Roman Empire and neighbouring territories. He aims to show the region’s distinctiveness as well as its involvement in the Renaissance, the Reformation and surging nationalism, among other movements. According to Rady, the effects of such events in central Europe “pulse more vigorously or have a different quality, as if seen in a distorting mirror”.

Wider narratives are combined with instructive examples. Early chapters, covering the centuries from ancient Rome through to Charlemagne, feature a blur of events and individuals. The true birth of central Europe, Rady asserts, came around AD 1000 when Otto III exerted dominion over the Germanic and Slavic peoples (along with territories in present-day France and Italy) in the name of Christendom and the Holy Roman Empire.

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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May 2023-Ausgabe von BBC History UK.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

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