Tangible belonging : negotiating Germanness in twentieth-century Hungary /

Given the turbulent history of Central and Eastern Europe, historians have tended to focus on the ethnic and nationality conflicts that follow a narrative of either steps toward national awakening or a struggle for liberation against an oppressor. Swanson (history, Univ. of Tennessee at Chattanooga) provides an alternative approach in this magnificent book about the German-speaking minority in Hungary. His central argument is that Hungarian Germans maintained a sense of "tangible belonging" rooted in the local and immediate environment as opposed to more abstract notions of Germanness. In effect, his aim is to interpret the process by which German Hungarians came to define who they were. The book is organized into six chapters that chronologically examine the history of German-speaking Hungarians from the late 19th century to the late 20th century. The Hungarian and German source material gathered is quite impressive. Maps and pictures depicting rural village life are a visual treat, and Swanson intersperses his narrative with material gathered from a series of interviews with Hungarian Germans who lived through the tumultuous times involving war, fascist and communist occupation, and expulsions. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. --Charles P. Vesei, Baldwin Wallace University