NIKOLAI TODOROV, Society, the City and Industry in theBalkans, 15th–19th Centuries (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 1998).

Abstract

This collection of essays, the latest in a long list of collected works put together by Variorum's Studies in East–Central Europe, 1500–1900, is supposed to give the reader a broad range of Nikolai Todorov's lifetime work. Todorov's contribution to the field is not in doubt, although this collection hardly does justice to that contribution. The fourteen separate articles often overlap in theme, and on one occasion they almost reproduce the same article, as they span a period that reaches back to Todorov's early career in Bulgaria (1964–92). The essays somewhat misplace Todorov's importance to the field, as most of the language appropriated has become outdated with the collapse of the Bulgarian institutions that funded Todorov's research until 1989. I would like to think Todorov can survive the fall of historical materialism.