Goodbye Eastern News Today

After visiting 17 countries for his latest book, our writer leaves his heart in Albania – ‘a country of knotty history, boundless hospitality and infinite surprises’

There is no such thing as Eastern Europe, at least not in the geopolitical sense of the word. The phrase is an “outsider’s convenience”, writes Jacob Mikanowski in his intimate history Goodbye Eastern Europe. The author suggests that over 1,000 years of Eastern European history was written mainly in the imperial capitals, by outsiders more powerful and hostile towards the region.