388 Book review section – Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 70 (2021) (4) 381–391. Historical geography has become less fashion- able in the past couple of decades compared to a general fascination with the historical changes of geographical conditions, which is not independent of the growing concern for the environmental crisis of our time. Research, however, has partly turned to studying the Earth system and increasingly focused on humans as part of environmental processes rather than towards understanding the changes in the physical geographies of certain areas. This led to a well-expressed shift from historical geography towards environmental history. Another paradigm shift that made historical ge- ography less fashionable was the increasing critique of polities as units of enquiries, and shifting focus to smaller, and non-traditional units of analysis such as social and religious groups, different settlement types, etc., which usually proved to be more alien to historical geography. However, the book of two Croatian geographers, Borna Fuerst-Bjeliš and Nikola Glamuzina, went against both trends in choosing a modern polity, the Republic of Croatia as their unit of analysis, and focusing on the changes of the geographical condi- tions of this area in the past millennia. The book was originally published in Croatian (in 2015) mainly for educational purposes before it was translated into English in 2021. On the one hand, the transla- tion is a good one, but due to the original, poten- tially Croatian-Serbian readership, it goes into de- tails which are very difficult to follow without a deep knowledge of the micro-regions of Croatia. The au- thors also attach explanatory footnotes to discuss dif- ferent terms unfamiliar for the average reader. As historical geography has very different research traditions and approaches, it would have been es- sential to provide a theoretical basis to the analysis of Fuerst-Bjeliš and Nikola Glamuzina in the 10 chap- ters of their book. According to them, “the nature of the discipline, the historical geography of Croatia can be understood as the geography of Croatia’s past. It is primarily the geography of how the space and cultur- al landscape have been shaped, for every respective period of Croatia’s historical-geographical develop- ment.” (p. 3). However, what the authors mean by cultural landscape remains unclear. While in many subchapters the authors point to changes in popula- tion and administration of the different provinces, the analysis of the landscape and vegetation changes in the past millennia is not detailed thoroughly. While at some points the authors discuss the importance of stock breeding, wine growing, olive production as well as, of course, crop production, the impact of the different activities on forest cover, soils, ero- sion, etc., is only vaguely mentioned in the different chapters of the book. This is difficult to understand, as according to the authors’ definition, the historical geography they were to present is the history of the cultural landscape changes in which one can hardly disregard from studying the above listed problems. Despite the reduced thematic focus there are some remarkable merits of the text. First, it is logically well-structured and easy to read. The recurrence of topics makes comparison easier, such as the maps of similar outcrop. Beside general descriptions, both qualitative and quantitative data are available in the text. Especially well-written are the parts on land ownership-system (including Neolithic, Roman, Medieval, Ottoman etc.), trade, commerce and traffic (the Venetian seashore). The changes of geographical terms (Dalmatia, Slavonia) are also well interpreted. However, there is certain imbalance within the focus. First there is the territorial aspect: Dalmatia is very professionally written, while in the case of Pannonian Croatia one would expect more, especially if compared to the valuable descriptions and analysis of transformations in Dalmatia. Furthermore, though Fuerst-Bjeliš, B. and Glamuzina, N.: The Historical Geography of Croatia: Territorial Change and Cultural Landscapes. Cham, Springer, 2021. 203 p. DOI: 10.15201/hungeobull.70.4.9 Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 70 2021 (4) 389Book review section – Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 70 (2021) (4) 381–391. the text keeps focusing on cultural landscapes, some elements could have been emphasized better. For in- stance, there is no map on the changes of land cover and agricultural systems – not even on a small por- tion of the country. The fact that in the chapters from the foundation of the Croatian state onwards the work mostly builds on Croatian scholarly literature is no surprise, and the fact that the research results of the last decades are brought to the English-speaking audience is most welcome. However, two tendencies worth to be pointed to in this respect. First, that even while discussing the Roman times, the book predominantly uses Croatian literature, and in most cases not ones written in the past two decades. The other striking omission is scholarship of the neighbouring coun- tries for the last millennium, such as works written in Italian, German, and Hungarian. One last point before turning to the different chap- ters of the book, is the usage of maps. Some of the maps significantly contribute to the understanding of the administrative changes, the political units, migratory processes, etc. However, many maps (e.g. Figures 3.1, 5.5, etc.) only represent the actual features within the present boundaries of Croatia that makes it difficult to use. In most cases not only the visu- alization, but the content of the maps too deserves attention, but some could have been planned better (like the one indicating migration routes or the one that illustrates whole Baranja as part of the medieval Kingdom of Croatia). Original maps, the contempo- rary and local perceptions of the landscape could also have added more to the general picture. As for cultural elements on landscapes, while routes are indicated professionally, there is no map on castles and fortifications, major churches with data of their (re)construction, mines, etc. These would have been worthy of more attention. The authors also consider the territorial changes of administration as a part of cultural landscape, but while the župa-system is clari- fied well, one would expect more explanation in the beginning when the boundaries of Croatia and their creation is discussed. After these general points, in the following sections we aim to draw attention to some specific issues in the different chapters. After the general outline and concept of the book (Chapter 1), that we touched upon above, Chapters 2 to 10 give a chronological overview of the development of the land of Croatia from the Palaeolithic to the 2010s. The general features of Palaeolithic-Neolithic era are described too long (just like the Ottoman structure and its general internal problems before its collapse in Croatia), in comparison to the shorter description of the local specificities. The maps are lacking excava- tional sites located outer Croatia, which is confusing (the territorial extent of these archaeological cultures is indicated properly). Since the territorial extent of some cultures is not limited to present-day Croatia it would have been more proper to give the full names of these cultures: the authors use Starčevo culture instead of Starčevo-Körös, or Vučedol culture instead of Vučedol-Zók culture. After discussing the Palaeolithic and Neolithic settlement processes in the area in Chapter 2, the au- thors provide a more in-depth analysis of the Roman period, which clearly was a period of fundamental importance in the landscape changes in the past mil- lennia. There is a fascination amongst historians for almost a century on the formation of the landscape of the Mediterranean. Some of the scholars have put the formation of secondary vegetation, the treeless hill- slopes and shrubland vegetation to the Roman period in their focus, and attributed it to the intensive timber need of both the military and civil populations. There is virtually no discussion of this in the book (the au- thors seem to consider the Ottoman period more seri- ous in this respect), and neither of the impact of the Roman agricultural system on the soils in the area, which in the past decades, not independent of the growing importance of geoarchaeology, brought important results in understanding the impact of Romanization all throughout the Mediterranean. There are some misunderstandings and mistakes in this chapter. The Roman limes is referred to as a hard border (p. 45), the Ostrogoths as nomadic peoples (p. 49). To illustrate, how important it would have been to use the most recent literature let us point to one further issue. The authors attribute large importance to the plague of 542 A.D. (Justinianic Plague) in the territory of modern Croatia, around which a com- pletely different paradigm has been unfolding in light of more recent research by Lee Mordechai, Timothy Newfield, Adam Izdebski, and others. Chapter 4 is dedicated to the changes in the post- Roman period, marked by a strong desurbanisation and decline according to the authors. They point to these processes in the territory of the former province of Pannonia, while in the seaside they suggest a stron- ger continuity in the “Roman cultural landscape”. The focus of the chapter is early medieval migration processes, most importantly the arrival of the Slavs. The Balkan migratory processes and the Slavic migra- tion within that have been a large field of debate in the past half a century, where fundamentally differ- ent views have been presented, including ones that argue against the actual movement of the Croats to their later medieval settlement area, but argue for their local presence from earlier on, and for their identity transformation in the early medieval period. (For a comprehensive overview of the question, see Latosinszky, C. 2017.) It is also in this part that the Byzantine, the Carolingian, and then Ottonian control over the territory are discussed. The Carolingian in- fluence over the region has recently been subject of an important set of analyses (Dzino, D. et al. 2018) which 390 Book review section – Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 70 (2021) (4) 381–391. along with other works showed that the region, un- like suggested in the current book, was never under direct influence of Carolingian noble families (pp. 60–61). The authors suggest that the German influ- ence in the tenth century went hand in hand with the development of classical feudalism in the area, which was not even typical in areas north of the Alps in the Holy Roman Empire (p. 59). Chapter 5 discusses the development in the centu- ries starting with the political influence of the Árpád dynasty and Hungary over Croatia at the turning of the eleventh century. From that time on, the book refers as Hungarian-Croatian Kingdom to the polity that covers most of what is nowadays Croatia, which is anything but usual in the existing scholarship. This part of the book almost completely disregards the discussion of the changes caused by the Hungarian rule, despite that in the past years, important works discussed the connections of the two polities in the Árpádian period and later (Gál, J. 2021). This part would have also profited from a thorough review by a historian. In that case the Golden Bull of 1222 would not have been dated to 1242 (p. 67), Pécs would not have been included in Lower Slavonia (p.69), and Genoa would not have been interpreted as an im- portant trading hub in the tenth century (p. 77) when it was only a small fishing village. In presenting the late medieval transformation in the region not only the political changes – i. e. the appearance of the Ottoman Empire in the area – are discussed (Chapter 6), but also the social and reli- gious crisis are mentioned, partly as attributed to the pataria and the Cathars in the area (p. 89) which is dif- ficult to digest in this form. The political crisis is also explained in terms difficult to understand. According to the authors the lower levels of the aristocracy lost much of their status due to the strengthening of mid- and high-level aristocracy (sic!) that went along with disappearance of nearly all noble counties which is a complete misunderstanding (p. 89). The first half of the Ottoman presence is explained in a relatively detailed manner. The new political-administrative system is presented in detail, alongside with reli- gious regulations for the Christians who lived un- der Ottoman rule. Yet, landscape and geography are almost completely omitted from the discussion. Somewhat surprisingly the Ottoman rule is seen as a heyday for the people, compared to the “Habsburg Monarchy and the Republic of Venice, where Slavs had a secondary role and could not rise high in the state rulership apparatus” (p. 93). The land manage- ment system under the Ottoman rule is also explained in positive terms contrasted with the “abusive feudal system,” which is debatable (p. 101). The map on migrations (p. 106) during the Ottoman era uses the term Burgenland and Slovakia (instead of present-day Slovakia or Upper Hungary), which are anachronisms, and did not emphasize the Hungarian Kingdom as a refuge area of Croatians and Bosnian Catholics (though the text itself men- tions this). (Central Bosnia should have been men- tioned on the map as a source area of immigrants not only to Croatia, but to the Hungarian towns of Mohács, Pécs, Baja and even Buda in the 17th century. After 1686 the [re]conquering of Buda, Catholic Bosnians [Croatians] were allowed to settle in Víziváros and Tabán in the close vicinity of the castle of Buda, because they were trusted loyal sub- jects.) The abundance of Bosnian Catholics is clearly indicated by the family names ‘Bosnyák’ in Baranja in the Conscriptio regnicolaris from 1715 (Conscriptio regnicolaris), whereas the frequency of family names ‘Horvát’ in western Upper Hungary underlines the hypothesis that Croatian elements contributed to the birth of the modern Slovakian nation. Texts mention šokci and bunjevci as resettled elements, but maps did not illustrate them separately. (The directions on this very map could have been labelled with the linguistic terms, which are described in the text, but foreign readers hardly have any idea on the location of Stokavian, Kajkavian, etc.) While explaining the formation of dialects in the Ottoman period, little space is dedicated to the land- scape changes caused by the completely transformed land ownership, which received disproportionately little attention with some but notable exceptions such as the military frontier areas. In Chapter 7, while ex- plaining the Habsburg and Venetian occupation and the recapture of the territory of present-day Croatia, we recurrently read about cultural landscapes be- ing destroyed, but finally with numeric data. When explaining the eighteenth century, the authors ad- dress the Venetian dominance over Dalmatia and emphasize the importance of natural resource ex- ploitation such as mining, timber for shipbuilding. One may wonder the long-term landscape heritage of this period, along again with the transformed landownership explained by the authors on page 134. The re-settling of many areas in the aftermath of the Ottoman occupation is presented in a more balanced way. However, while deeply explaining demographic processes and economic changes, less attention is paid to land-use and landscape changes. Finally, the reader might appreciate some data and maps using the modern censuses executed in the eighteenth century and later. A map on the so- cial structure based on the first census of Emperor Joseph in the 1780s in the Kingdom of Hungary would have been worth further discussion, even if it did not contain data on Dalmatia. Similarly, peas- ant landholding size and lifestyle could have been supported by Bićanić’s old work (Bićanić, R. 1952). The authors could not know, but in 2020 Hungarian scholars digitized the data on Croatia from the 1786 conscription – which indicates not only the landhold- ing size of smallholders at settlement level, but also 391Book review section – Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 70 (2021) (4) 381–391. the taxes, days spent with ‘robot’ (work on allodium landsize), and gift to landlord. The census data from 1910 for Croatia without Dalmatia are now available online not only as raw data (GISta Hungarorum), but as a series of maps published in an electronic atlas (Demeter, G. 2019). These could have also enriched the topics discussed and the authors’ statements. Mariann Nagy in her work on Hungarian agriculture in the late nineteenth century compares the situation in Croatia and Hungary at county level with hun- dreds of maps based on quantifiable statistical data for Slavonia and Croatia (not for Dalmatia) (Nagy, M. 2017). While using both the most recent economic litera- ture on the development of Croatia (Stipetić, V. for dynamic GDP calculations for the different regions and pp. 156–158) and old literature, sometimes con- tradictory statements occur. The former speaks about dynamic development, while the traditional histori- cal works emphasize underdevelopment and back- wardness, for which they blame Austro-Hungarian economic policies (the same was true for Hungarian Marxist historians in the 1970s). The truth is that the elder generation did not understand the mechanism of liberal capitalism, thus failed to recognize that dur- ing the dualistic period after 1868 most of the invest- ments were realized through private enterprises and not by the state (including the railway sector), unlike in the era of absolutism. In the regular form of capi- talism state intervention is of secondary importance, thus supposing exclusive role for the state itself in industrialization is a misconception. Therefore, the criticism towards Austria-Hungary’s government for the economic backwardness of Croatia cannot stand fully. It is also worth further emphasis that industri- alization in Croatia was largely based on available agrarian surpluses, such as wood and timber – the same role was played by grain (flour) in Hungary, which also fueled the industrialization. There are also some minor mistakes in the text re- garding the modern period. The Salonika railway was not finished by 1874 (p. 152), only the Ottoman parts had been constructed by then. It should also be noted that a railway economically more suitable for Croatia (between Vukovar and Rijeka) was first planned by Lajos Kossuth early in the 1840s, but the Pest-centric approach of count István Széchenyi finally triumphed (p. 151). The original idea was to send grains from Hungary and Slavonia directly to the markets through Fiume/Rijeka, bypassing Budapest. Since the plan was not carried out in this form, Budapest was able to create its enormous milling capacities, the incomes of which served as basis for capital sup- ply for other industrial branches. Though this story highlights the role of politics over economy, in other cases economic interests were of primary importance (of course, these economic interests of the nobility appeared in politics too during the era of railway con- structions). More information on banking would have been better, as well as some better maps regarding urban development (Rijeka). Beside these considerations the book is a worthy contribution on the topic, especially for those, who are not experts of the field, but want to get some ini- tial insight into the problems, topics, and structures. András Vadas1, Gábor Demeter2 and Dénes Sokcsevits2 R E F E R E N C E S Bićanić, R. 1952. Počeci kapitalizma u hrvatskoj ekonomici i politici. Zagreb, Croatia. Skolska knjiga. Conscriptio regnicolaris. Available at https://adatba- zisokonline.hu/search?category=osszeirasok&te- rm=eyJxIjoiIiwiZnEiOnsiY2F0ZWdvcnkiOnsiZjA wZWY1MjY5NjM3YmY3MTZmYjNkNTU1ZGQ1 N2JjN2YiOiJcIlx1MDBkNnNzemVcdTAwZWRyX- HUwMGUxc29rXCIifSwic29ydCI6InNjb3JlIn19 Demeter, G. (ed.) 2019. Atlas for Studying the History of Croatia (1870–910). Budapest, ELKH Research Centre for the Humanities. Available at http:// www.gistory.hu/g/en/gistory/gismaps#3_Atlas%20 for%20studying%20the%20History%20of%20 Croatia%20(1870%E2%80%931910) Dzino, D., Milošević, A. and Vedriš, T. (eds.) 2018. Migration, Integration and Connectivity on the Southeastern Frontier of the Carolingian Empire. Leiden and Boston, Brill. Gál, J. 2021. Dalmatia and the Exercise of Royal Authority in the Árpád-Era Kingdom of Hungary. Budapest, ELKH Research Centre for the Humanities. GISta Hungarorum. Available at http://www.gistory. hu/g/en/gistory/gismaps Latosinszky, C. 2017. Mítoszok, modellek és ide- ológiák. A horvát etnogenezis problémakörei és kutatástörténete (Myths, models and ideologies. Problems and research history of the Croatian eth- nogenesis). In D E N T U M O G E R I. Tanulmányok a korai magyar történelemről. Ed.: Sudár, B., Budapest, MTA BTK Magyar Őstörténeti Témacsoport, 399–456. Nagy, M. 2017. Regional Structure of the Hungarian Agriculture at the Beginning of the 20th Century. Budapest, L’Harmattan. 1 ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Institute of Historical Studies, Department of Medieval History, Budapest, Hungary. E-mail: vadas.andras@btk.elte.hu 2 ELKH Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute of History, Budapest, Hungary. E-mails: demeter. gabor@abtk.hu, sokcsevits.denes@abtk.hu