For a thousand years, the geography of Europes borderlands had dictated their destiny. East of Poland, west of Russia, the region had always been defined by colliding empires. In 1991, however, when a young Anne Applebaum travelled the region as it emerged from long years of Soviet rule, the identity of individual nations was beginning to take shape.

Travelling through Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine, from Kalingrad on the Baltic to Odessa on the Black Sea, Applebaum discovered a wide range of competing culture, religions and nationalisms. Rich in surprising encounters and vivid characters, <i>Between East and West</i> illuminates the soul of the borderlands and the shaping power of the past through the experiences of their people.