Description
Book SynopsisThis volume investigates competing ideas, images, and stereotypes of a European âEastâ, exploring its role in defining European and national conceptions of self and other since the eighteenth century.
Through a set of original case studies, this collection explores the intersection between discourses about a more distant, exotic, or colonial âOrientâ with a more immediate âEastâ. The book considers this shifting, imaginary border from different points of view and demonstrates that the location, definition, and character of the âEastâ, often associated with socio-economic backwardness and other unfavourable attributes, depended on historical circumstances, political preferences, cultural assumptions, and geography. Spanning two centuries, this study analyses the ways that changing ideals and persistent clichÃd attitudes have shaped the conversation about and interpretations of Eastern Europe.
Europe and the East will be essential reading for anyone interested in images and ideas of Europe, European identity, and conceptions of the âEastâ in intellectual and cultural history.
