Manfred Hildermeier is Professor of East European History at the University of Göttingen; he was Fellow of the Historische Kolleg in Munich and the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin and Chairman of the Association of German Historians (2000-2004); his writings on Russian and Soviet history include Die Russische Revolution 1905-1920 (1989), Geschichte der Sowjetunion 1917-1991: Aufstieg und Niedergang des ersten sozialistischen Staates (1998), Die Sowjetunion 1917-1991 (2001), Die Russische Revolution (2004) and the edited volumes Stalinismus vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg: Neue Wege der Forschung (1998) and Europäische Zivilgesellschaft in Ost und West: Begriff, Geschichte, Chancen (2000).

• Editorial PrefaceJane Caplan, Timothy Garton Ash, Jürgen Kocka, Gerhard Ritter, Margit Szöllösi-JanzeIntroductionManfred HildermeierChapter 1. National Socialist and Stalinist Rule: The Possibilities and Limits of ComparisonUlrich HerbertChapter 2. Burgher and Town: Typological Differences and Functional EquivalentsManfred HildermeierChapter 3. Republicanism versus Monarchy? Government by Estates in Poland-Lithuania and the Holy Roman Empire, Sixteenth to Eighteenth CenturiesMichael G. MüllerChapter 4. The Impact of Religion on the Revolutions in France (1789) and Russia (1905/17)Martin Schulze WesselChapter 5. Dictatorships of Unambiguity: Cultural Transfer from Europe to Russia and the Soviet Union, 1861–1953Jörg BaberowskiChapter 6. Europe and the Culture of Borders: Rethinking Borders after 1989Karl SchlögelChapter 7. Civil Society in Nineteenth-Century Europe: Comparison and BeyondJürgen KockaBibliographyNotes on ContributorsIndex

“…a useful guide both to the paths that the German historical profession has taken in the last decade or so and to the ways in which one might think about the social, cultural, and political history of modern Europe.” • Journal of Contemporary History“There is no doubt that this collection of essays will provide historians with important stimuli for bridging the gap between the historiographies of eastern and western Europe. Of paramount importance is the authors’ emphasis on historiography own contribution to the construction of the long-existing and powerful distinctions in European geographic and historical imaginations.” • Slavic Review