At the end of the twentieth century people spoke as if the Balkans had plagued Europe forever. But two hundred years earlier, the Balkans did not exist. It was not the Balkans but the 'Rumeli' that the Ottomans ruled, the formerly Roman lands that they had conquered from Byzantium, together with its Christian inhabitants. In this original account of the region Mark Mazower dispels current Western cliches and replaces stereotypes with a vivid account of how mountains, empires and religions have shaped its inhabitants' lives. As a bridge between Europe and Asia it has been exposed to a constant incursion of nomadic peoples across the centuries. Mazower's narrative ranges broadly both in time - from the Romans to the present, including the Byzantine and Ottoman experiences - and in space, treating the former Turkish domains in Europe as part of a common if complex historical inheritance. One of our outstanding historians of modern Europe, he has written a book of extraordinary richness and concision, which provides not only a vital historical and cultural background to contemporary Balkan politics but also offers the reader a fresh view of the region's relationship with Europe as a whole.