Borderlines: A History of Europe in 29 Borders

by Lewis Baston

An illuminating history of twenty-one key borderlines that demarcate Europe, and what they can tell us about the past, present and future of Europe.'A stunningly topical and timely book. Lewis Baston is a remarkable talent, very gifted as a writer and quite extraordinarily perceptive and original in his thinking' Anthony SeldonEurope's internal borders have rarely been 'natural'; they have more often been created by accident or force. Successive powers have redrawn the map of our continent, with varying degrees of the fingerprints of Napoleon, Alexander I, Castlereagh, Napoleon III and Bismarck are all there, but the present shape of Europe is mostly the work of the Allies in 1919 and Stalin in 1945.In Borderlines, writer and political historian Lewis Baston journeys along and across key borders from west to east Europe, to explore their history. He explores how places and people heal from the scars, physical and psychological, left by a Europe of ethnic cleansing and barbed wire fences. And he searches for a better European future amid the ravages of Brexit, COVID and war - finding it in unexpected places, scattered from the back lanes of rural Ireland to the Viennese-style coffee houses of the elegant Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi. A work of contemporary history that will appeal to readers of Tim Marshall but also Cal Flyn, Borderlines is a wry but ultimately optimistic look at Europe from its edges, the places where the questions and contradictions are sharpest - the cracks where the light gets in.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Travel, European History, Germany, Audiobook

408 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 6, 2024

About the author

Lewis Baston is an English political analyst and writer.

Reviews

[Mircea Petcu · Rating 5 out of 5]

În Europa se găsesc granițe dure, cu sârmă ghimpată, garduri și vize, cum ar fi granița dintre Polonia și Rusia. Dar există și granițe deschise, de exemplu, cele din interiorul Spațiului Schengen.

Lewis Baston acordă o atenție deosebită graniței dintre Polonia și Germania. Situată în cea mai mare parte pe râurile Oder și Neisse, această regiune din interiorul Germaniei a devenit zonă de frontieră după înțelegerile dintre Cei Trei Mari de la Ialta.
Orașe importante au fost rupte în două de nouă graniță. Un exemplu este orașul Kustrin, distrus complet în cel de-al Doilea Război Mondial, care este astăzi împărțit între Kostrzyn nad Odra (fostul cartier Kustrin Neustadt) din Polonia și Kustrin Kietz din Germania.
Puțin mai la sud, gara orăselului german Ostritz a rămas izolată pe malul polonez. Ostritz a devenit cunoscut publicului larg din cauza festivalului neo-nazist găzduit aici. De altfel, granița germano-poloneză separă cea mai săracă parte a Germaniei, votantă de naționaliști-conservatori (AfD), de cea mai bogată parte a Poloniei, liberală și pro-europeană.

Autorul critică politica intransigentă adoptată de Ungaria după Trianon, care până acum a rămas fără rezultat. În același timp, laudă prosperitatea crescândă a orașelor din vestul României, în special a orașului Oradea.

Recomand

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars!

“In the Europe of empires before 1914, there were few controls over the movement of people other than those that the market imposed through the affordability of travel.”

Although a little slow in warming up this soon grew on me and in the end Baston proved to be enjoyable company on his random tour of Europe. He is good at relating that thrill of stepping into a new country for the first time and he comes across as quite an affable and reliable enough guide too.

“There are, as we have seen, few geopolitical situations that cannot be worsened by an Englishman brandishing a map and a pen.”

One of the more memorable chapters relates to the bizarre case of Baarle on the Belgian-Dutch border, which is a cartographer’s nightmare of scattered exclaves and meandering borderlines all crazy paved onto the landscape which continues to throw up all sorts of strange and maddening scenarios for the people who live there and for those who police or govern them.

“The Russian-Finnish border is a particularly extreme instance of a line that divides two very different sorts of country: a wealthy, democratic, egalitarian state on side and a violent kleptocracy a few metres on the other side of the fence.”

If there’s one criticism you could bring up is that the tempo is inconsistent and again you can tell that there have been big gaps in the travel dates as it really messes with the flow of the read, impressing a fragmented and dis-jointed feel onto the journey, but still there’s plenty of quality and a lot to enjoy in here and this is definitely worth reading.

“For now, Kaliningrad represents a primitive, bloodthirsty imperial horsefly trapped in the sticky amber of the European Union.”

[Mark Allinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent exploration of Europe’s present and past told through its ever shifting borders. Starting with the often quirky and whimsical in the west of the continent, the story becomes darker and weightier as the book moves eastwards. Sharpened in its importance by the war in Ukraine which is well contextualised, there is a message of hope and a path to reasonable ways in which states and their border communities could embrace diversity and coexist peaceably. The approach is refreshingly down to earth, not overly freighted with theory but much more rooted in often surprising and well analysed history and enlivened by the author’s own extensive exploration on the ground. Strongly recommended for anyone who cares about Europe and Europeans.

[Robert Cavanagh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did really enjoy this, initially powered through but slowed massively with revision & holiday. Would recommend for people who like accessible history + geography like prisoners of geography

[James Thomas Nugent · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a meandering mess of a book full of bias.

Here are some of the major issues:

1) There is no discussion about the multiple variables that lead to national borders. For instance, there is no discussion about the importance of shared language, shared culture, shared history, or shared moral values in the establishment of a nation. There is no discussion of provincial borders, county borders, city borders, town borders, or family borders. To me, borders are extensions of human nature from the household up. This idea is akin to the philosophical logic of Aristotle and his idea of Zoon Politikon. I can debate this. It's not a simple question. For Baston, however, borders are just artificial impositions by the powerful on the weak and are done by national fascists be they left or right. For him, it is simple. No consideration is given to the other explanatory perspectives like the one I just put forward.

2) There is no discussion about the benefits of borders. Notably, there is no discussion about the security they provide whatsoever. For instance, he doesn't once address why the EU does have borders. It's not a pure nationalistic entity so why have borders? Instead, he focuses on the negatives and pecularities of borders. I don't actually disagree with his points on border people being vulnerable to genocide or having unique identities. He is correct on those points. However, borders also allow people to leave an inhospitable country to go somewhere else more hospitable. He just doesn't get into this point in any meaningful way.

3) There is a real worrying promotion of open borders throughout that is done in a taciturn way. I am not against migration and people living or working in other countries, but border control is essential for that to work without a country wide collapse. If we didn't have border control in the EU, our countries would be swarmed with immigrants because we have an unjust amount of opportunity and money vis a vis other continents near us. The residents of those continents will go to the land of opportunity and money, yet as any European knows, we do not have the infrastructure or jobs to accommodate immigration on this scale.

4) He is extremely selective in what he discusses. This is recent European border history. He focuses on the effects of WWI and WWII mainly. There is no meaningful discussion of Rome whatsoever and its effect on European borders. He is also clearly biased towards Russia and Hungary vs. the EU (minus Hungary) (the paragon of progress per Baston).

5) The book reads like a travellers poorly organised notes dressed up as something intelligent and rigorously thought out. The book is literally the following:

a) Cosmopolitanism is desirable.

b) Boo communism and boo nationalism.

c) Borders are artificial impositions by the evil nationalists and communists on the cosmopolitan poets.

d) Open borders are therefore desirable, so we can all have a poetic picnic together, hold hands, and sing kumbaya.

e) We are all so well off on in the EU (minus Hungary) vs. the likes of Russia. Proof of kumbaya concept per Baston.

Here is one for you, Lewis. If borders are just artificial impositions, why are nationalistic movements growing rapidly currently across Europe? How come the EU isn't the kumbaya poetic picnic you tacitly think it is for so many?

Lastly, he just makes some quite outrageous statements throughout. This for myself stood out:

"History and ethnicity are too slippery to be valid ways of defining borders"

This is just flat-out stupid.

a) You can not define a border in any meaningful way without consideration of history.

b) Conjoining history with ethnicity like this is stupid. They are not comparable variables.

c) He doesn't mention religion or culture as being too slippery to be valid ways to define borders. Why not? I guess from reading this book, and it's over focus on Jewish European history vs. other European religious histories that perhaps Baston would be supportive of a European Jewish state. Just a hunch, though it is based on the way this book is presented.

So yeah, overall, this book is abysmal. It is ludicrously stupid.

He should stick to defining electoral borders.

Avoid.

[Stian · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bourgeois journey through *some* of Europe's borders.

The historical facts are interesting enough, but when its written by a very much biased pro-EU Guardianista, one has to question the validity of the analysis...
Not convinced.
But there were moments of enjoyment, though some topics get much more attention than others, without any reasoning as towards why it is so.

[Dominika Mišková · Rating 5 out of 5]

milujem dejepis a geografiu a politiku a hlavne keď sa to všetko spojí, makes you think about things!!!!

[Dragos-Teodor Zaman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Granițele Europei nu sunt doar linii trasate pe hartă, ci reflexii ale memoriei, limbii, fricii și puterii. De la cele geografice la cele invizibile, toate spun ceva despre cine suntem.
Dar dacă toți purtăm în noi cultura europeană, ce mai înseamnă, cu adevărat, o graniță?

[Ale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seven (!!!) years ago I read In Europe , part travelogue and part European history, covering the massive century of upheaval and the birth of the European Union. It was a book that fascinated and enthralled me, its sedate pace somehow still gripping and enchanting. I didn't want it to end, frankly, and since then I have been looking for something similar, something as well researched and written, something that appreciates the European project and understands where its roots and fault-lines lie. And finally, Lewis Baston has delivered something that just took over my brain and wouldn't let go.

Borderlines is a phenomenal look at Europe from its edges, the borders where identity, nationality and history become murkier. It is a spiritual successor, of a sort, to Mak's book in that it covers the 20th century, but this time it's a lot less about (for example) the French state as we know it now and more about the small pocket in France, in Alsace and Lorraine, where French identity is much more diffuse, on account of the fact that for part of the last century, it was occupied by Germany. And like Alsace there are a lot of other places in Europe where this happens, from the ghosts of the old Habsburg empire (and its influence) to the pocket of Russia that exists in northern Europe, cut off from the rest of the country (and somehow still Russian but not quite). This is less a book about Germans and French and Russian identity and more about Galicia, Silesia, the non-existent Sudetenland that formed so much of Nazi Germany's lebensraum activities, it's about being Ruthenian and Rusyn and Cossack, these identities that were absorbed under bigger flags but that still exist, surviving in small isolated parts of the continent, on its edges.

The book, ultimately, is about how fragile and temporary identity can be, how these borderlands are places not just of cultural exchange but also of understanding and cooperation, how the borders that are drawn (ultimately arbitrarily) between nations do not stop the exchange of people and ideas. It is also a letter to the impact that the Jewish intelligentsia has had on Europe and how despite the Holocaust (and pogroms, and gulags, and the Holodomor), the traces of their existence have not been completely erased and in fact, in some places, have begun to flourish again. I didn't want to stop reading this and I didn't want the book itself to end, it captured me so thoroughly. I could have read another 1,000 pages if Baston wrote them, because throughout he takes such a measured approach to his work, so carefully presented and so much admiration and respect for the countries he visits. He makes me want to take trains and criss-cross the continent, following in his footsteps. I can't think of higher praise than that.

[Guðmundur Arnlaugsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mikið var þetta góð bók og fróðleg. Afar misdramatísk og lógísk landamæri sem eru tekin fyrir og svo sem misskemmtilegir kaflar þar af leiðandi, en heildarmyndin er afar sterk. Mjög fróðleg, stundum sorgleg en líka bjartsýn þrátt fyrir allt. Smá Habsborgaraveldis-nostalgía og höfundur sem er óhræddur við að vera Evrópusinni, sem gleður mig sérstaklega þegar um Englending er að ræða. Mæli eindregið með.

[Coney Islander · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic book. Part travelogue, part meditation on the nature of borders, and where other books in a similar vein offer only superficial analysis, this is beautiful and informative in every anecdote about each hamlet and its place in history - from Northern Ireland to the Carpathians it's packed with pointers to read more and with encouragement to go out and see for yourself.

[Leonor Borges · Rating 5 out of 5]

um livro muito bem escrito e com um manacial de informação geo-estrategica e história da Europa entre fins do século XIX e princípios do XXI.
A instrumentalização das fronteiras o desenho das mesmas a régua e esquadro, por quem as não conhece e a absoluta falta de preocupação com as pessoas e etnias das zonas de raia transformou por completo o continente Europeu.
com situações caricatas, é certo, mas alterando profundamente a Europa Central, de onde saiem os relatos mais negros, que nos fazem pensar

[Carlotta Rauch · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic and thoughtful book exploring the borderlands of Europe, their fluctuations over time and what they look like today.

As someone whose family history has been shaped by changing European borders, I was particularly drawn in and sometimes moved by the warm and person-centered exploration of each small border town and region on Baston’s journey.

I was also drawn to the book’s mapping of the multiculturalism that has always existed within Europe. It was welcome antidote to the ever increasing rigid nationalism we see on the continent (and in the UK) today.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came to this book via an interview with the author on the Rest is History podcast, And if it’s good enough for Tom and Dom it’s certainly good enough for me.

It’s a great topic. An account of a number of contentious European borders and how they have shifted over time. How history has shaped the map, and thus impacted upon the people who live in the border regions.

The first few chapters are engrossing. Partition in Ireland and the shifting frontier between Northern France/Germany are sufficiently recent and close-by to be a familiar starting points. And the author certainly provides fascinating insights.

I really enjoyed the Kaliningrad piece as well, and there is a great account of quirky Dutch/Belgian enclaves of which I knew nothing beforehand.

So far so good. One major drawback though is the shortage of detailed maps. It just doesn’t make sense. If ever a book was made for in depth and chronological maps this is the one. But all we get is one little thumbnail per chapter. (I read the book on kindle, so maybe the print edition is better presented?)

More problems ahead though. The latter half of the book covers Eastern Europe. There are rich tales to tell about Poland, Hungary, Ukraine and their neighbours, and this book comprehensively relates them.

However I found it difficult to navigate. I wasn’t superficially familiar enough beforehand to be able to make my way through it all without having to repeatedly retrace my steps. Not the author’s fault I know, but I must admit I found it hard going at times.

I got to the end though, and enjoyed getting there.
An interesting book, well worth investing time in.

[Margarida Cabral · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,4*

[Isobel McDonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting and thoughtful, but difficult as an audiobook. presumably the hard copy is full of maps and images, which would be helpful.

[Louis Hannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

sometimes good sometimes not so good

[Owen McArdle · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's potentially quite wide as a scope to talk about most of Europe's (largely historically) disputed or weird borders, but I think the hallmark of this being a good book is that it had just enough information to make it interesting without going into too much detail or being too long!

[Robert Henson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book I bought on the basis of following its author on bluesky (a first for me since moving to that platform), though of course its subject matter is fascinating offering a different perspective on European histories from Ireland to Finland to the much more pressing issue of Ukraine. For the most part engaging and almost sleepily meditative as it winds through histories and peoples and places, sprinkled with deep historical facts and titbits that can only be gleaned from travelling to said place; though occasionally it's a little dry. It does a good job in pricking nationalist certainties and I find myself mostly agreeing with its conclusions. A decent read to end the year.

[Pep Bonet · Rating 4 out of 5]

The issue of borders is hypnotic. Borders are places of special attraction. Places of no name, empty, where nature grows wild and life can be challenging. Baston travels through Europe visiting the main borders that changed in recent times, breaking communities, as in Ireland, or moving people around, as around the German Empires, both the Third Reich in Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Kingdom, or being the battle front that divided Europe in the WWII between France and Germany.

Borders allow Mr Baston to talk about Europe's history, past and recent, and reflect about the borderlands effect. Especially interesting for a reader like me, whose universal history at school early crossed the Rhine River and certainly never reached the Elbe River. Difficult to imagine Austria being the master of L'viv (Lemberg at the time) or Chernivtsi (Czernowitz).
Particularly interesting are the reflections about how nationalism, as proposed by Herder, meant as a liberating theory, became a State ideology that broke down most of the things. The tension between a multicultural Austro-Hungarian, where all nations had rights, but where they felt like prisoners, would end up in a nation creation process that forced all minorities to move or suffer under the new States. Lessons from history to avoid repetitions.

[SOPHIE PITCHFORD · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really sensitive and informed reading of some of Europe’s borders. Baston treats the complex relationships between differing nations, states, ethnicities and languages with respect and curiosity. For me, a Brit with experience living in West France, I have gained a newfound appreciation for the EU, restoring not only freedom of movement, but the right to exist to many nations. Baston hits the right balance between observing eccentricities and paying homage to lost lives and heritage throughout Europe. What I’m trying to say is that this book is 100% worth the read for any European, but specifically, the kind of Brit who feels detached from our continental neighbours with whom we share much more culture than we care to admit.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a topic I would have expected to be incredibly dry, this was anything but.

I consider myself pretty uneducated in both geography and modern history, and this book was a super interesting mix of both.

A good trip around Europe telling real history, as well as analysing the effect of borderlines. Aside from some of the obvious ones (Germany, for example), I found Baarle a bright spot in the book. I had no idea how insane their border is and hadn't really thought how things like Covid restrictions and parking would work.

I hope the author writes more books in this vein.

[Alastair Savin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best promotion for Chernivtsi and other beautiful obscure towns in Ukraine and Poland that’s ever existed. Another book thats made me sad for the fall of the Habsburg Empire, for all its disfunctionality and backwardness, I feel that if it had survived another 50 years then Central Europe would have had a less catastrophically violent century. They were an effective dampener on Nationalism and we are still living with the horrors that that Nationalism unleashed.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, takes you into obscure parts of Europe. The maps are good but I would recommend reading it with a good atlas nearby. Boundary lines create dilemmas and controversy, but the nation's leader not respecting them is a sign of tyranny. Particularly compelling in context of war in Ukraine. Baston has no mercy for Putin, Orban, Hitler etc.

[Lynne Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book

An intriguing mix of history and travelogue that achieved it's aim of giving an alternate history of Europe that keeps the interest.

[Pedro Quirino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uma homenagem absolutamente fenomenal a uma ideia de Europa que ainda é possível salvar.

[Diana Iovanel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think you can be from anywhere in Europe and not be touched by this book

[Paul Moreau · Rating 5 out of 5]

In different parts history, geography, political science and travelogue, Lewis Baston takes us on a journey to 29 key borders that represent to him so much of the change and turbulence of recent and distant European history.

In some ways the book envisages those YouTube videos where a satellite view of the Earth is continually zoomed until finally you see some bloke mowing his garden lawn. The author starts with the satellite view, describing the significant changes of national boundaries and the resulting impact on population movements and the broad sweep of history itself. His disdain for those who make superficial judgements on a map without regard for consequence is manifest, not least in those situations that lead to mass murder and ethnic cleansing.

At the next level the book zooms in on the practical implementation of those borders, the appropriation of geographical features, the fences, guard towers, and stripped down dead zones, not to mention the numerous idiosyncrasies that can make parts of borders look counter-intuitive or just randomly drawn. At the next level you see how people pragmatically adapt to the borders they are given, whether it is adapting to new neighbours, moving a doorway to ensure staying in a preferred nation or taking on a liberal interpretation of laws that may change according to where you are on a given stretch of road.

Most interesting of all though, and the part that cannot be replicated by a zoomed-in satellite view, takes place inside the heads of the people who inhabit the borderlands. For them, questions of identity, security, ethnicity and nationalism, and even belonging are far from abstract ideas and far more shifting realities that may change at short notice. In some ways, Baston maybe views border-landers as in some ways having as much in common with those in similar situations in other countries as they do with their own countrymen.

AS other reviewers have pointed out the book is substantially enhanced by the experiences of Baston in having visited so many of the places discussed. It adds an almost Quixotic air to the journey and some of these places, places that remind us that remoteness and difference can still be found on even a crowded and increasingly homogenised continent.

Most of all, Lewis Baston's message is that the 29 places discussed in this fascinating book are just a minority of the almost endless examples of where borders have flexed and changed and all that this entails. Europe is newly formed and there is little purity in the definition of many borders given the ongoing state of flux of both the borders themselves and the mix of peoples that inhabit them. If a region of Ukraine with many Russian nationals is not ideal for some, then neither is a region of Russia consisting of many Ukrainian nationals. Rather, leave them be as they stand, however imperfectly, and let the people who live there work it out. They will generally do so if given the chance.

[Derek Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was perfect for me. I love European history, geography, travel writing, and a strong narrative voice that speaks to a serious and relevant problem. Borderlines: A History of Europe, Told from the Edges has an excellent narrative, driven by the author's honest passion for borders and what the human construct does to affect the people that live at the borders.

Central to his thesis is that nationality's follies are found among "borderlanders," who have much more similarity to each other than to either of their capitals. In exploring these borders, Baston reveals the deep scarring across the continent during the turbulent 19th and 20th centuries, as well as the origins of the current hardening and violations with in the EU and by Russia, respectively. Baston is an excellent writer, and he has such an engaging voice; neither stuffy nor glib, with the correct level of detail that doesn't bore. This was the first book of Baston's that I read, and I look forward to reading more from him.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny thing, the author’s last name means “fight” in argot french, since he’s talking about borders and conflict it’s fitting (I’m easily entertained).

This is a very nerdy book (my favourite kind) that tells history through geography (or vice versa), in France we study both at the same time, we call it “histoire géo” and most of us usually loved one and hated the other (you also can’t really escape geography at university if you choose to study history) so again that book was meant for me. Just like the author when I look at the world today I feel a deep sense of sadness, and just like the author I love to combat that feeling with knowledge. History tells it really well, borders were not a reality for rich people, they could easily travel from one country to another. Borders also moved around, A LOT. You could be French one day and wake up German the next day (actually happened at least twice to people living in Metz) which makes people saying things like “but my country ruled over that country for 50 years over 100 years ago” look really stupid (we’re talking about Putin indeed). I also learned that you are not allowed to throw things at Russia from the Lithuanian border, which is very disappointing.