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Daphne Berdahl, Where the World Ended: Reunification and Identity in the German Borderland. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999, xiii, 294 pp.

efforts are not always completely successful. As already mentioned, one of the major themes that serve as a foundation of the entire work is that these celebrations were heavily contested throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While that certainly in many cases was and still is true, there are numerous exceptions to this theory. For instance, it has long been known that the decennial celebrations of Francis Jospeh's ascendancy to the throne in 1848 were widely celebrated throughout the Monarchy. As Andrea Blochel points out in her analysis of these celebrations, even groups who were vehemently opposed to the Austrian imperial government would readily join in the celebrations of the Emperor. Because of the great variety of cultural, religious, and political celebrations presented in this volume, it seems as if the editors are to a certain degree overstating their case with respect to the similarity between the nature, function, and effect of these celebrations. As with any collection of essays, the contributions vary in quality; however, the difference between some of these works seems unnecessarily great. Der Kampf um das Geddchtnis contains many brilliant and insightful analyses, such as Valeria Heuberger's essay on the largely futile attempts by different regimes in Bosnia-Hercegovina to use public celebrations to create unity in an ethnically and religiously heterogeneous area. At the same time, however, other articles amount only to listings of the dates of public celebrations without any substantial contextual analysis. To be sure, the editors note in their introduction that due to factors such as differing accessability of sources, some of the contributions might have a more encyclopedial character than others. However, that does not eliminate the impression that if a more selective approach had been used the overall quality of the work would have been higher. Furthermore, because of the uneven quality of the contributions, it is difficult to gain a comparative overview of the different ethnic groups and their respective relationship to different types of celebrations. Despite these criticisms, Der Kampf um das Geddchtnis is a useful addition to the study of formation of national identities and national memory. Apart from providing some new theories on already studied topics, it also presents, albeit in rather encyclopedial form, some previously unpublished material, which should serve as a good starting point for scholars to continue their explorations of these issues. By displaying the contested nature of most of these celebrations, this work contributes some additional insights into the much debated question of the reasons for the political instability that has plagued large parts of these regions for quite some time.