Luka Ivan Jukic

Postcard of the Austro-Hungarian emperoro Franz Joseph I, 1908. Wien Museum (CC0).

‘The Life & Death of States’ and ‘Vienna’ reviews

New books by Natasha Wheatley and Richard Cockett explain how for all its apparent anachronism the Hapsburg empire, and its capital, shaped the modern world.

A poster of the Stalinist era with the inscription: 'The whole world will be ours!', 1935

‘Goodbye Eastern Europe’ by Jacob Mikanowski review

Is it time to say goodbye to Eastern Europe, a world remade so frequently by empires, war and political ideologies that it scarcely stays the same for two generations in a row?

‘The Balkans, a false note in the European concert’, German cartoon from Der Wahre Jacob, 12 October 1909.

The Balkans: Doomed to Disunity?

Often treated as a footnote of European history, the future of the Balkans became a hot topic at the end of the Ottoman Empire. Was Europe’s ‘Little Orient’ destined to fall apart?

Polished Off

A panoramic portrait of Józef Piłsudski, the man who ‘towers over modern Poland’.

view of the Italian peninsula looking south from the Alps, 19th century.

‘History of the Adriatic’ by Egidio Ivetic review

History of the Adriatic: A Sea and its Civilization by Egidio Ivetic explores the Mediterranean within the Mediterranean as a single historical space.