Good evening.

It's so good to be with you here on Inside the Cover.

Tonight, I want to thank our loyal PB Kansas viewers, Brenda and Len, for adding this evening's book to my personal library.

Thanks, guys.

I really appreciate it.

Tonight's book is Goodbye Eastern Europe by Jacob Mikanowski.

Subtitled An Intimate History of a Divided Land, this is a scholarly book on serious and interesting subject.

It appears to be carefully researched and is complete with a detailed index.

If you are interested in European history, politics, religion, folklore and geography, I think you will find this boo a valuable and compelling read.

It's now time to go inside the cover.

I think it would be initially helpful to define Eastern Europe as discussed in the book.

The first map shows Eastern Europe circa 1648.

The four segments are Muscovy, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Hapsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire.

Compare this with Eastern Europe circa 1921 1939.

Between the two world wars.

As you can see, the USSR no has a huge presence to the east.

The Ottoman Empire has morphe into Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Romania, Albania and Hungary.

And we now see Austria and Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Balkan countries o Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The final map is of Eastern Europe in 2022.

Czechoslovakia has been divided.

Yugoslavia is gone.

And we see multiple new countries.

Ukraine, Slovenia, Croatia.

Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Montenegro.

The home of Nero Wolfe, by the way.

Kosovo, Belarus and Moldova, to name a few.

Studying these maps, as I read Mikanowskis text certainly helps me have a better understanding of this area and provided a great bit of context to worl news from the last few decades.

The very first sentence of the book says “This is a history of a place that doesn't exist”.

Mikanowski goes on, “The phrase Eastern Europe is an outsider's convenience, a catch all used to conceal a nest of stereotypes.

Some of these stereotypes poverty, gangsterism, ethni strife are genuinely damaging.

Others are merely sad.” Finally, he writes, “There is something distinctive about Eastern Europe, something that sets it apart from Western Europe on the one side an the rest of Europe on the other.

The essential defining characteristic is diversity.

Diversity of language, o ethnicity and above all, faith.” The book is divided into three primary parts: Faiths, Empires and Peoples in the 20th Century.

Using these multiple and varied parts, the author provides a visceral, touching and impactful illumination to this area of the world and those who have called it home.

I want to be clear this book is not an easy read.

The subject matter is at times intense, graphic and discouraging.

And Mikanowski writes with great detail and specificity.

It is a work that could easily be the text for European history course.

Candidly, it is a book that I probably would not have pulled from the shelf.

However, I am really pleased to have read this book as I learned so very much and so many parts of the puzzle connected for me.

Again, thank you, Len and Brenda for enhancing my own personal reading life.

In turn, I am hopeful that we have been able to return the favor to our viewers.

Our book tonight has been Goodbye Eastern Europe by Jacob Mikanowski.

I enjoyed it and found it a very worthwhile and satisfying read.

I hope you do too.

And if you do, please let us know.

Goodnigh and see you next time right here on PBS Kansas.