East and West

these may have a grounding in reality they are also, invariably, conceptual impositions. Holton's book treads the familiar ground of the western European transition. East-Central Europe in Transition, a collection of new essays by Polish and Hungarian specialists, makes the point that a simple dichotomy between west and east is, for most purposes, inadequate, and that, for all the evidence of local diversity, the kingdoms of Poland, Hungary and Bohemia constituted a distinct region between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries marked by considerable demographic, economic, political and cultural unity. Characteristically, it was a region of economic backwardness that was increasingly incorporated into international trade as an exporter of raw materials. The economies turned towards commodity production with a resultant increase in regional specialization and exchange.--- review of Holton's book