This book reveals how historical regions in Europe “have been, and are being, conceptualized and delimitated over time” (2). As Stefan Berger makes clear in the first chapter, however, it is inevitably about the establishment of borders, and the struggle to define inclusion and exclusion for various purposes.
Borders have acquired a variety of definitions, from those that emphasize identity and culture to those that focus on social cooperation or territorial control. None of these definitions is mutually exclusive, but as Berezin has written, “territory is inescapable,” primarily because politics and authoritative political decision making is tied to physically bounded space. “Territories and borders are coterminous,” she argues, and “the consolidation of power always requires the closing of frontiers.”1 But which frontiers must close, how permeable are they, and who (or what) decides where they are?
Scholars have usefully differentiated between territorial, organizational, and conceptual borders. Territorial borders formally...