Books by Alexander Maxwell

What gives this banal cliche such irresistible attraction? How does East-West symbolism interact with other symbolic geographies? This book examines East-West rhetoric in several different historical contexts, seeking to problematize its implicit assumptions and analyse its consequences.

At the turn of the 19th century, Hungarian-speaking Hungarians sought to assimilate Hungary's ethnic minorities into a new idea of nationhood, the country's Slavs instead imagined a proud multi-ethnic and multi-lingual state whose citizens could freely use their native languages. This book presents the story of how and why Slovakia came to be.