Chapter 5 describes the transformation of a section of Arnavutluk into the modern Albanian state. The new independent Albania was proclaimed by the predominantly Sunni elite when Ottoman rule collapsed in the First Balkan War in 1912 and Albanian settlement areas seemed on the verge of being divided between Serbia, Montenegro and Greece. With the onset of the First World War, the fledgling state was faced with foreign occupation, and threats to its territorial integrity and to its very existence. The chapter examines how in the immediate aftermath of the war, Albanian leaders, meeting at the Congress of Lushnjë, struggled to create a functioning state apparatus but were quickly faced with political conflict which led to coups, assassinations and general instability. In this chaos, power was dominated by those with independent access to armed forces, resulting in the rise of the tribal leader Ahmet Zogu. Fearing his increasing authoritarianism, opposing forced mounted a revolution which ousted Zogu and allowed the construction of a short-lived generally progressive regime. Within six months, however, a counter-revolution brought Zogu back to power.

Chapter 7 describes events in Albania during the Second World War. During this critical period, two different Albanias are constructed. Following the Italian invasion a series of puppet regimes are installed which initially gain some support as Rome invests heavily in much-needed infrastructure and general development. Mussolini hopes to gain further support by encouraging "Greater Albania" dreams through his ultimately disastrous invasion of Greece. The chapter examines the formation of the Albanian Communist Party and the resultant growth in resistance movements. With the Italian collapse, the Germans invade and occupy Albania, constructing their own puppet regimes that gain only limited support. As the end of the war nears, the resistance degenerates into civil war. With the help of extensive British aid, the communist-dominated partisans, as the only national movement and the only group untainted by collaboration, are victorious and construct a new regime. The chapter concludes with an evaluation of the profound impact of the war.

Chapter 4 describes developments in the nineteenth century when the Ottoman empire initiated military and administrative reforms in response to military defeats, particularly against Russia. In the southwestern Balkans, Albanian Sunnis resisted any change in their privileged position vis-à-vis the Christian population. Sunni Albanians were among the conservative and anti-reform forces in the Ottoman empire. When Christian nation-states emerged in the Balkans following the uprisings in Greece and Serbia, major European powers intervened ever more arressively in the Ottoman Balkans. In that context, Christians and Bektashi Muslims began to design an Albanian national program. These national activists struggled to overcome both religious differences and distinct regional special identities. The loss of territory by the Ottomans in the Balkans after the Berlin Congress (1878) also mobilized the Sunnis, who increasingly feared the collapse of the empire. The Albanian Balkan provinces of the Ottoman empire developed into a laboratory for competing identity politics by local actors and the major European powers.

Chapter 6 traces Albania’s descent into authoritarianism under the regimes of Zogu. Albania is first transformed into a republic with Zogu as president wielding considerable executive power. Within four years he abandoned the republic and created a monarchy and ruled as King Zog with unfettered power. With politics removed as a obstacle to unity and stability, Zog proceeded to attempt to create a nation out of disparate religious and cultural communities. The results are mixed at best as desperate economic conditions drove the king into increasing dependence on Mussolini’s Italy. The funds obtained are poorly allocated and necessary reforms, like agrarian reform, are not implemented as the king relied too heavily on the support of major landowners. The Italians, in the meantime, insinuated themselves into most aspects of government and the administration to the extent that Albania became little more than an Italian colonial outpost. Not satisfied with anything less that complete control, Mussolini is finally convinced by German moves elsewhere in the Balkans, and by his foreign minister’s insistence that Albania contained vast riches in terms of natural resources, to invade and annex Albania, driving the king and his family into exile. The chapter concludes with an evaluation of the achievements and failures of the Zog era.

Chapter 2 traces Albanian history through the Roman and Byzantine periods. The ancestors of contemporary Albanians were well integrated into these empires. The Latin influence on the Albanian language is correspondingly strong. In late antiquity, the Roman empire recruited an important part of its elite from the southwestern Balkans. The arrival of Slavic groups in the Balkans led to the collapse of state administration and the church and thus to a cultural turning point that was much more profound than in Western Europe. It was not until the ninth century that Byzantium was primarily re-Christianized. The Albanians came under the influence of the new Slavic states in the Balkans. Urban communities flourished particularly along the coast. The region was closely intertwined with the Venetian-Adriatic culture, but also with Byzantine civilization. With the decline of Byzantium, the southwestern Balkan region splintered into numerous small dominions. Venice, the Kingdom of Naples and, from the end of the fourteenth century, the Ottomans vied for influence. Albania was one of the first areas in the Balkans conquered by the Ottomans and nowhere was the resistance to the new empire as fierce as in Albania. Georg Kastriota Scanderbeg, who is revered as a national hero today, is symbolic of this resistence.

Chapter 3 describes how profoundly the Ottoman conquest changed Albania. Devastation and flight completely altered the settlement structures, especially in the north. Albanians fled not only to Italy but also into the mountains, where they organized themselves into tribal structures. On the plains and especially in the south, many people came to terms with the new empire. Islamized Albanians became an essential pillar of the Ottoman military and administrative structures. Until around 1600 the southwestern Balkans remained mostly Christian, either Orthodox or Catholic. In the course of the seventeenth century, most Albanians converted to Islam for various reasons making the region even more religiously diverse. In addition to Sunni Islam, the Bektashi dervish order, which had absorbed Shiite and Christian influences, also established itself. In the early modern period, three religious cultures coexisted side by side, Orthodox, Catholic, and Muslim, whose adherents maintained cultural contacts not only with each other, but also with their co-religionists outside the area. The southwestern Balkans formed a peripheral zone of the empire. The imperial administration could barely control the mountain regions in a sustainable way. The result was a legal pluralism, with many Albanians, especially in the mountain areas, seeing customary law as a pillar of their identity and their special political position.

Chapter 8 describes the rise of the Stalinist dictatorship under Enver Hoxha from its foundation on the ruins of the prewar Albania, through its construction by the use of Soviet tactics, to its consolidation in the late 1950s. The new Socialist Albania begins the post-war period as a sub-satellite of the Yugoslavs. Barely avoiding absorption as the seventh Yugoslav republic, the state breaks with Tito and becomes a full satellite of the Soviet Union. Albania experiences a fundamental transformation of society and the economy in pursuit of socialism and the "socialist man." The regime follows the Soviet model with collectivization and rapid industrialization but as the Soviets soften following the death of Stalin, Hoxha becomes more extreme turning to China as Albania’s third protector. The Chinese period witnessed the excesses of the ideological and cultural revolution but as China begins to integrate into the world community Albania is left isolated with a deteriorating economy. Hoxha’s successor, Ramiz Alia attempts to preserve the system through generally minor reforms. The chapter concludes with an evaluation of the Hoxha years.

Chapter 9 examines the collapse of communism in Albania and the rise of political pluralism. Seemingly overnight Albanians are released from one of the most restrictive political systems in Europe and in the process experience yet another profound shift in every aspect of life. This transition is complicated by a lack of experience with democracy and a free-market economy. The political elite seem to prioritize power over progress and Albania once again slowly slips into authoritarianism. Oligarchs and crime lords increase their influence on many aspects of the economy, the media, the government, and the administration. Relations with neighbors and the world as a whole constitutes a bright spot in postwar development as Albania joins NATO and becomes a candidate member of the European Union. The chapter concludes with a examination of Albania’s current status as well as the remaining challenges it faces including the extensive emigration of the best and the brightest as well as the lingering legacy of the brutal communist period.

The economy of many parts of Europe changed significantly during the period from 1450 to 1600. The vast majority of Europeans continued to live in villages and make their living by agriculture, but new, larger-scale processes of trade and production shaped both the cities and the countryside, altering the landscape and leading to environmental problems. Population growth and the worsening climate of the Little Ice Age contributed to food shortages, rising prices of basic commodities, and a growing polarization of wealth. In western Europe landless people often migrated in search of employment, while in eastern Europe noble landowners reintroduced serfdom, tying peasants to the land. Rural areas in both western and eastern Europe became more specialized in what they produced, and in cities wealth increasingly came from trade. Investment in equipment and machinery to process certain types of products, such as metals and cloth, increased significantly, with coal replacing increasingly scarce wood in some areas as a source of heat and power. Successful capitalist merchant-entrepreneurs made vast fortunes in banking and moneylending, while the poor supported themselves any way they could.

In the seventeenth century, the British and French established successful permanent settler colonies in North America, while the Dutch established colonies and trading centers in North America, southern Africa, and southeast Asia. In the Indian Ocean basin, first the Dutch and then the British took over more and more trade. Private companies supported these ventures, providing financial backing, ships, and personnel. In the Caribbean and parts of the Americas, European powers established colonies where enslaved Africans worked producing crops on large plantations. Colonization involved the willing and coerced migration of millions of people, who carried their customs, languages, religious beliefs, food ways, and other aspects of their culture with them. These blended into new hybrid forms in a process of creolization, just as groups themselves blended through intermarriage and other sexual relationships. The Europeans who ruled the colonies developed systems of defining and regulating people using changing conceptualizations of difference, in which a hierarchical system based on “race” became increasingly dominant. Colonization also spread Christianity around the world, which blended with other existing and imported spiritual traditions. Colonies also had a powerful economic impact, though the degree to which they shaped the “rise of the West” is hotly debated.

During this era educated individuals and professionally trained writers, artists, and composers developed new and distinctive types of cultural products, but they also continued to share many traditions with their less educated neighbors. Universities offered the most advanced education, and increasingly adopted humanist curricula that emphasized original texts. Humanists asserted that educated men should be active in political life, and several wrote important works of political theory. Italian humanists grew interested in Greek philosophy, while northern humanists regarded humanism as a way to bring about needed reforms in the Christian Church. The increase in literacy provided a market for all types of printed books in vernacular languages, and theaters staged the works of playwrights for a variety of audiences. Artists, especially in Italy, developed an innovative style in which they tried to achieve a sense of balance, proportion, and harmony. The word “Renaissance” was first used by authors writing about art in the sixteenth century, who began to see painters, sculptors, and architects as creative geniuses rather than simply artisans. They viewed this as a revival of Europe’s classical past, but art and other aspects of culture were also powerfully shaped by contacts with Asia, Africa, and (after 1492) the Americas.

In the seventeenth century, every state in Europe had an official Church, whose clergy worked with secular authorities to enforce morality and confessional unity. Authorities imprisoned and banished religious dissidents, and tried and executed witches, who were increasingly understood as enemies of God. Many people came to feel that state Churches were hollow or overly formal, however, and instead turned to groups that encouraged more personal forms of devotion and individual piety. This interiorization of religion occurred among Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians, and also among Jews and Muslims. In the eighteenth century, educated elites became increasingly secular, but, for most Europeans, religious devotion, expressed through individual actions such as prayer or communal activities such as worship services, remained strong. Movements such as Methodism, Jansenism, pietism, and Hasidism made religion more rather than less important in many people’s lives. The religious landscape of Europe was more diverse by the end of the eighteenth century than it had been two hundred years earlier, however. Within many denominations there was a wide spectrum of belief and practice, from those who attended services only for holidays and family events to those for whom faith shaped every activity.

After 1450 the size and scope of more centralized government institutions increased in many parts of Europe. Rulers of larger states, beginning with the Ottoman sultans, established permanent standing armies and supported more professionalized naval forces. They developed new types of taxes and bureaucracies to pay for these increased military expenditures, and engaged in shrewd marital strategies to expand their holdings through marriage as well as warfare. The processes of consolidation followed similar patterns, but with local variations in England, France, Spain, Portugal, the Ottoman Empire, Poland–Lithuania, Muscovy, Denmark–Norway, and Sweden. In the Holy Roman Empire the Habsburg emperors were unable to establish a centralized nation-state because of political and religious divisions, and in Italy wealthy city-states ruled by merchants dominated politics. Everywhere lower levels of government, such as cities, villages, and parishes, also collected taxes, issued laws, and maintained courts, and traditional elites adapted to new circumstances very well. Rulers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries did not limit their activities to what we would consider politics but often attempted to shape the cultural and religious lives of their subjects as well, recognizing that these were integral to maintaining power.