The book was written as a follow up on a research article by the same author,[5] first published in the
Geopolitics journal in 2017 in response to the 2015 migration crisis and the disagreements between the new post-Communist member states in the Visegrád Four on the one hand and the EU and some of its Western European member states on the other. The disagreements emerged over the
proposed system of refugee redistribution quotas.[6] A reworked and updated version of the article is included in the book as Chapter 2. The monograph is 214 page long and includes seven chapters, a preface, introduction, and conclusion.
Contents
Devín Castle in Slovakia
The cover of the book features the ancient
Devín Castle in
Bratislava, Slovakia, situated at the confluence of the
Danube and
Morava rivers. The border between Slovakia and
Austria runs through the rivers. Prior to the fall of Communism this was also the border between what was known during the
Cold War as "
Eastern" and "
Western" Europe.
The book was reviewed in the
Journal of Contemporary European Studies,[7]Eurasian Geography and Economics,[8]Europe-Asia Studies,[9] the Hungarian Geographical Bulletin,[10] and Satori.[11] Andrey Makarychev, Professor of Regional Political Studies at the
University of Tartu,[12] noted that the work combined an "insider's perspective on Central Europe" with "insightful conceptualizations of key analytical categories that are indispensable for studying foreign and security policies in a broader context."[7] Laure Delcour, Associate Professor at
Université Sorbonne Nouvelle in
Paris, praised the book for "bringing nuances and complexity to the frequently oversimplified picture of the region."[8] Gela Merabishvili, researcher at
Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, argued that the book would have increased relevance following the start of
the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine but also criticized it for an insufficient definition of Central Europe as "a region-building discourse" as well as for not exploring empirically "how each V4 country leverages the discourse on Central Europe to position itself within Europe."[10]