Bukovina, when it has existed on official maps, has always fit uneasily among its neighbors. The region is now divided between Romania and Ukraine but has long been a testing ground for successive regimes, including the Habsburg Empire, independent and later Nazi-allied Romania, and the Soviet Union, as each sought to reshape the region.

In this wide-ranging book, Cristina Florea traces the history of Bukovina, showing how this borderland found itself at the forefront of modern state-building and governance projects that eventually extended throughout the rest of Europe.