Central Europe is a geographical region of Europe between Eastern, Southern, Western and Northern Europe. Central Europe is known for its cultural diversity; however, countries in this region also share historical and cultural similarities.
The Low Countries, historically also known as the Netherlands, is a coastal lowland region in Northwestern Europe forming the lower basin of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta and consisting today of the three modern "Benelux" countries: Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Geographically and historically, the area can also include parts of France and Germany such as French Flanders and the German regions of East Frisia, Guelders and Cleves. During the Middle Ages, the Low Countries were divided into numerous semi-independent principalities.
Germans are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The constitution of Germany, implemented in 1949 following the end of World War II, defines a German as a German citizen. During the 19th and much of the 20th century, discussions on German identity were dominated by concepts of a common language, culture, descent, and history. Today, the German language is widely seen as the primary, though not exclusive, criterion of German identity. Estimates on the total number of Germans in the world range from 100 to 150 million, most of whom live in Germany.
Lotharingia was a medieval successor kingdom of the Carolingian Empire. It comprised present-day Lorraine (France), Luxembourg, Saarland (Germany), Netherlands, most of Belgium, and Germany west of the Rhine. It was named after King Lothair II, who received this territory as his share of the Kingdom of Middle Francia which his father, Lothair I, had held.
Mitteleuropa, meaning Middle Europe, is one of the German terms for Central Europe. The term has acquired diverse cultural, political and historical connotations.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany is a book by American journalist William L. Shirer in which the author chronicles the rise and fall of Nazi Germany from the birth of Adolf Hitler in 1889 to the end of World War II in Europe in 1945. It was first published in 1960 by Simon & Schuster in the United States. It was a bestseller in both the United States and Europe, and a critical success outside Germany; in Germany, criticism of the book stimulated sales. The book was feted by journalists, as reflected by its receipt of the National Book Award for non-fiction, but the reception from academic historians was mixed.
Timothy Garton Ash is a British historian, author and commentator. He is Professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford. Most of his work has been concerned with the contemporary history of Europe, with a special focus on Central and Eastern Europe.
The Habsburg monarchy, also known as Habsburg Empire, or Habsburg Realm, was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities that were ruled by the House of Habsburg. From the 18th century it is also referred to as the Danubian monarchy or the Austrian monarchy.
Sir Richard John Evans is a British historian of 19th- and 20th-century Europe with a focus on Germany. He is the author of eighteen books, including his three-volume The Third Reich Trilogy (2003–2008). Evans was Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge from 2008 until he retired in 2014, and President of Cambridge's Wolfson College from 2010 to 2017. He has been Provost of Gresham College in London since 2014. Evans was appointed Knight Bachelor for services to scholarship in the 2012 Birthday Honours.
Orlando Guy Figes is a British historian and writer. He was Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London, where he was made Emeritus Professor on his retirement in 2022.
Charles Neal Ascherson is a Scottish journalist and writer. He has been described by Radio Prague as "one of Britain's leading experts on central and eastern Europe". Ascherson is the author of several books on the history of Poland and Ukraine. His work has appeared in The Guardian and The New York Review of Books.
Peter Taylor, is a British journalist and documentary-maker. He is best known for his highly biased and sectarian coverage of the political and armed conflict in Northern Ireland, widely known as the Troubles, and for his investigation of Al Qaeda and Islamist extremism in the wake of 9/11. He also covers the issue of smoking and health and the politics of tobacco for which he was awarded the WHO Gold Medal for Services to Public Health. He has written books and researched, written and presented television documentaries over a period of more than forty years. In 2014, Taylor was awarded both a Royal Television Society lifetime achievement award and a BAFTA special award.
French–German (Franco-German) enmity was the idea of unavoidably hostile relations and mutual revanchism between Germans and French people that arose in the 16th century and became popular with the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. It was an important factor in the unification of Germany, World War I, and ended after World War II, when under the influence of the Cold War, West Germany and France both became part of NATO and the European Coal and Steel Community.
The Low Countries comprise the coastal Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta region in Western Europe, whose definition usually includes the modern countries of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Both Belgium and the Netherlands derived their names from earlier names for the region, due to nether meaning "low" and Belgica being the Latinized name for all the Low Countries, a nomenclature that became obsolete after Belgium's secession in 1830.
The Duchy of Luxembourg was a state of the Holy Roman Empire, the ancestral homeland of the noble House of Luxembourg. The House of Luxembourg became one of the most important political forces in the 14th century, competing against the House of Habsburg for supremacy in Central Europe. They would be the heirs to the Přemyslid dynasty in the Kingdom of Bohemia, succeeding to the Kingdom of Hungary and contributing four Holy Roman Emperors until their own line of male heirs came to an end and the House of Habsburg received the territories that the two Houses had originally agreed upon in the Treaty of Brünn in 1364.
The European balance of power is a tenet in international relations that no single power should be allowed to achieve hegemony over a substantial part of Europe. During much of the Modern Age, the balance was achieved by having a small number of ever-changing alliances contending for power, which culminated in the World Wars of the early 20th century.
The Almost Nearly Perfect People: The Truth About the Nordic Miracle is a 2014 nonfiction book by the British journalist Michael Booth. In the book, Booth focuses on the five Nordic countries—Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden—dedicating a section of the book to each one.
Alexander James Watson is a British historian. He is the author of three books, which focus on East-Central Europe, Germany and Britain during World War I. His most recent book, The Fortress: The Great Siege of Przemysl was praised by The Times newspaper as a "masterpiece". His previous book, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918, won numerous awards. Currently Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Charles W. Ingrao is an historian and public intellectual focused on early modern Central Europe and the contemporary Balkans. Born and raised in New York City, he attended Richmond Hill High School. He received his BA from Wesleyan in 1969 and his PhD from Brown in 1974, studying under Norman Rich and William F. Church. He is a professor of history at Purdue University and has held visiting positions around the world. In 2001, he founded and still directs “The Scholars' Initiative." This project seeks to use the work of scholars to undermine nationalist interpretations of the recent past that have made peace in the Balkans difficult. As of 2011, the project had brought together over 300 scholars from 30 nations, including all of the states of the former Yugoslavia.
The battle of Prague (1741) was a successful French capture of the Austrian city Prague.
