Borderlines: A History of Europe, told from the edges

(Hardback)

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'A stunningly topical and timely book. Lewis Baston is a remarkable talent, very gifted as a writer and quite extraordinarily perceptive and original in his thinking' ANTHONY SELDON

A riveting history of Europe told through twenty-nine key borders that define the past, present and future of our continent

Europe's internal borders have rarely been 'natural'; they have more often been created by accident or force.

In Borderlines, political historian Lewis Baston journeys along twenty-nine key borders from west to east Europe, examining how the map of our continent has been redrawn over the last century, with varying degrees of success. The fingerprints of Napoleon, Alexander I, Castlereagh, Napoleon III and Bismarck are all there, but today's map of Europe is mostly the work of the Allies in 1919 and Stalin in 1945.

To journey to the centre of the story of Europe, Baston takes us right to its edges, bringing to life the fascinating and often bizarre histories of these border zones. We visit Baarle, the town broken into thirty fragments by the Netherland-Belgium border, and stop in Ostritz, the eastern German town where Nazis held a rock festival. We meander the back lanes of rural Ireland, and soak up the atmosphere in the Viennese-style coffee houses of the elegant Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi. Through these borderlands, Baston explores how places and people heal from the scars left by a Europe of ethnic cleansing and barbed wire fences, and he searches for a better European future - finding it in unexpected places.

Reviews

'A stunningly topical and timely book. Lewis Baston is a remarkable talent, very gifted as a writer and quite extraordinarily perceptive and original in his thinking' -- Sir Anthony Seldon
'Lewis Baston has incredibly strong research skills, thanks to his brilliant ability to make connections combined with an extraordinary wealth of knowledge. His writing is clear, witty and charming' -- Alex von Tunzelmann

Author Bio

Lewis Baston has written on British politics and the electoral landscape for more than thirty years, from polling analysis for the Financial Times to election results analysis for the Guardian. From 2003 to 2010 he was Research Director for the Electoral Reform Society, and from 2011 to 2015 he was Research Fellow at Democratic Audit. He has appeared on BBC Breakfast, The One Show and Sunday Politics, Radio 4's PM and The World Tonight, and as the border expert on Tim Marshall's series about borderlands for The Compass.