Mapping Modernities: Geographies of Central and Eastern Europe

When the communist governments in Central and Eastern Europe collapsed in 1989/91, there was a revived interest in a region that had been largely neglected by western geographers. Mapping Modernities draws on the resulting work and other original theoretical and empirical sources to describe, interpret and explain the place and spatial order of modernities in Central and Eastern Europe since 1920, to give a theoretically underpinned, regional geography of the area. The book interprets the geography of Central and Eastern Europe from 1920 - 2000 in terms of spatiality and modernity. It details the individual and collective development of places produced within the three modernising projects of Nationalism, Communism and Neo-liberalism. These ideologies are seen as three geo-historical, time/space conjunctions of modernity competing for the hegemonic imposition of order onto the maelstrom of ideas, people and events in the central-eastern territories of Europe. Within each geo-historical period, localities, regions, states, Europe and the globe are systematically debated as constructed and contested places. Spatial modernity theorises an experience of time and space mediated through place. Place is conceptualised as bounded, multi-scalar meaningful, relational space. Place expresses individual and environmental development in ideas and practices. Spatial modernity directs attention to the multi-scalar properties of place, place particularities and place relations that are embedded in socio-cultural and locational attitudes and values.