The connection between cultural identity and threats to national security has become axiomatic in avant garde geopolitical analysis. Taking off from this starting point, Merje Kuus convincingly shows how the end of the Cold War brought a new round of identity-security anxiety in Eastern Europe rather than its promised transcendence. - John Agnew (UCLA), author of Hegemony: The New Shape of Global PowerCritical geopolitics is back. Kuus s tale of how it is to be enlarged upon demonstrates how European civil society has grown stronger, and at what costs. - Iver B. Neumann, Professor, Oslo University and the Norwegian Institute of International AffairsWith an engaging and accessible writing style, this book will be an important text for both scholars and policymakers interested in questions of European enlargement. This wide appeal is also a product of the author's resolute focus on geopolitical practice, drawing our attention not so much to what particular iterations prescribe but rather what political stances and interventions they enable. Consequently the book provides an important contribution to the methodology of critical geopolitics. Rather than relying on what could be understood as a traditional approach involving semiotic deconstruction of texts or images, Kuus provides an embodied account highlighting the role of intellectuals of statecraft in producing and recycling geopolitical ideas. - Alex Jeffrey, Newcastle University
