One toe over the line
Borderlines: A History of Europe in 29 Borders by Lewis Baston (Hodder, 2025)
Reviewed by Elizabeth Stice
Lewis Baston’s new book, Borderlines: A History of Europe in 29 Borders, is part history, part travelogue, and part philosophical reflection on the present. As Baston walks us across these European borders, he shares their stories, some scenes from his own travels, and some observations on present day politics. Even if you have no particular interest in borders, it is an interesting read (and one recommended by Dominic Sandbrook of The Rest of History).
Borderlines approaches borders as a particular type of zone of interaction. Borders are like the beaches in Greg Dening’s classic work, Islands and Beaches: Discourses on a silent land: Marquesas 1774-1880. The rules and roles of life on the beach differ from either of the two worlds a beach borders–land and sea. Beaches and boundaries are liminal spaces. As Dening writes, “Boundaries are real but, as the structuralists like to tell us, they have no dimensions, no space of their own. So when we cross a boundary, say between childhood and adulthood, between the single state and marriage, between life and death, we invent moments in which we are neither one thing nor the other” (157). That is the case with many of the borders described in Borderlines, places that seem neither fully one place or another–where languages and cultures seem to overlap and blend in interesting ways, where people hold multiple passports, and where history is far from singular.
All of the borders in Borderlines are examples of fascinating places. Some are especially politically contested, or have been, like the border of Northern Ireland, or many of Hungary’s borders. Others are much less contested and much more comfortable, like the border between the Netherlands and Belgium in the charming and unique town of Baarle. The general public will be aware that certain borders carry a heavy burden, like the border of Germany, Poland, and Russia or the border between Ukraine and Russia. Other borders the public will likely know little to nothing about, like the border of Czechia, Slovakia, Germany, and Austria.
In some ways, Borderlines might remind some readers of the works of Patrick Leigh Fermor. Baston engages the history of the places he visits and introduces us to unique cultures. The text includes accounts of his own travels and some encounters with locals and border guards. As Greg Dening tells us, “crossing boundaries is a social act: it is also mysterious” (158). Baston’s book brings the delight that comes with that and he even visits some of the same places visited by Fermor, like Bratislava. Baston seems to be thrilled by the diversity and range of interesting places and cultures. Even with globalization, unique and interesting places continue to exist.
If much of Borderlines is fun to read in the same way that Fermor’s works are, there is also an undercurrent of seriousness. Borderlines takes us to Silesia, where neo-Nazis have a hold over the land and its legacy today and mysterious Nazi tunnels from the Third Reich remain. The past and present of the border between Ukraine and Russia is not a light matter. Hungary’s persistent overtures toward territorial aggression and their dogged attachment to aspirational maps cannot be interpreted as mere entertainment. While some borders in Europe are soft or softening, others are hardening, and some are in danger of movement through aggression.
Central Europe, Mitteleuropa, is in many ways at the heart of Borderlines. Despite its location, central Europe is rarely centered in European history. But these borders are some of the best places to begin understanding what happened in the twentieth century. So much happened there. Baston’s book delivers on its assertion that borders are an excellent vantage point for understanding European history.
The “ghost” in the machine of Borderlands is the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Its end has shaped central Europe and the resulting states in so many ways. Hungary remains unable to cope with the Treaty of Trianon, for example. But the empire’s ethos has also played an important role in later events. For all its faults, Austria-Hungary was a multinational polity which had space for diversity, which many of the nations that grew out of it have not and do not. The inherent instability of ethnic nationalism has been the moral of many stories in the region since 1918. This region and its troubled borders offer a chance to consider the nature of our polities and the spaces for difference within them.
In many ways, this is a timely book. The EU is in flux. Borders are big again in the United States. Borders are being fought over in Ukraine. Borderlines embodies this moment in time well, helping us consider all of those issues. But Borderlines goes beyond this moment, too. It reaches further back into more distant times, calling up images and names from much earlier centuries, and populations which never properly settled into nations of their own. Though Borderlines addresses contemporary events, it will not be irrelevant in a few years.
Borderlines is an ideal companion for the armchair traveler and historian. In its pages you will find Nazi tunnels, vampires, and pagan gods. There are towns with doors in one country and windows in another. There are regional drinks and desserts. There are borders crossed every day by locals and borders which cannot easily be crossed. People cross these borders for family, for heritage, and for cheaper cigarettes. It is an entertaining and informative read.
Elizabeth Stice is a professor of history and assistant director of the honors program at Palm Beach Atlantic University. When she can, she reads and writes about World War I and she is the author of Empire Between the Lines: Imperial Culture in British and French Trench Newspapers of the Great War (2023).
