The Balkans as Europe 1821-1914: edited by Timothy Snyder and Katherine Younger, Rochester, NY, University of Rochester Press, 2018, xvi + 174 pp., £40.00 (Paperback), Maps. Notes. Index.

Dhand does note, somewhat dismissively, the large role Kundera attributed to Jews in his model of Central Europe, but Kundera's perception was accurate concerning the cultural Central Europe for which he was grieving, and which I had i existed. But now, with the surge of populism and nationalism, especially in the Visegrad countries (of Central Europe), Dhand adds on as almost a surprised epilogue, then another epilogue, there is more talk of Central Europe, with apparently reversed values: now Central Europe is politically in the West, but culturally in the East. This new Central Europe of the intellectuals (and then the politicians) largely followed Milan Kundera in defining Central Europe as those countries that were really part of the West but had, unjustly, been imprisoned in the East. States started making novel use of consuls to intervene in the internal affairs of other states; this was especially true of consuls' function in the Ottoman Empire where, given the autonomous status of most countries in the Balkans before 1878, consuls were usually the only means of effecting political goals as well as extending protection to a state's citizens. [Extracted from the article]