REVIEWS 753 northern part of the Bautzen area. The Domowina already had 20,000 members and, despite the severe economic conditions, there was great enthusiasm for the revival of the Sorbian language, which for the last eight years had been leading an underground existence. Though faced with enormous practicalproblems, Nedo was now able to achieve much, introducing Sorbian in the schools under his direction. He had enemies, however, and afterthe German Democratic Republic was born he was graduallyeased out of his position as director of schools and as president of the Domowina. This caused widespread disappointment and resentment among the Sorbs. Henceforth the political element in his life was minimal. He devoted himself instead to research and lecturing. For a time he was director of the Sorbian Institute at the Karl-Marx University in Leipzig, before moving to Berlin as Professorof FolkloreStudies. Retirement in i968 promised peace, but it was blighted in I97I by the death of his twenty-four-year-oldson Matej who was murderedin the streetin Berlin. The storyof Nedo's life is itselfenough to kindlethe reader'sinterest,but it is also, as this book persuasivelyargues, an importantpart of Sorbian history. However, deciphering the life of a man who managed to survive(and to help others survive) by disguising his true feelings and opinions is not easy, especially as Nedo lived in times when there were some things it was better not to write down. As the security servicesof the Third Reich and the GDR attested, it was difficultto know what he really thought. Annett Bresan has risento this challenge with zeal. By thejudicious use of interviewswith Nedo's contemporaries and the scrupulous analysis of huge quantities of archival material, as well as printed sources, she has succeeded in revealing not only the main external detailsof Nedo's life, but also as much of his inner world as we are ever likely to know. To conform with the rest of the text, which is in German, extractsfrom Sorbian sourcesare given in German translation,but the Sorbian originalis rigorouslyadded throughout in the footnotes. The text has been prepared, edited, and proof-readwith great care. The only printer's error worth mentioning is in the name of a Slovene newpaper on p. I49, which shouldbe Slovenec, not Slovenca. Hertford College, Oxford GERALD STONE Evans, R. J. W. GreatBritainand East-Central Europe,I908-48. A Study in Perceptions. The First Masaryk Lecture. King's College London, 2002. vii + 31 pp. Notes. [4.00 (paperback). IN sharp contrast with Germany's Ostpolitik, Britain's policy towards EastCentral Europe has not occasioned much lively academic debate. Over the years some awkward questions have been asked about Britain's supposed disinterestin East-CentralEuropean affairs,but diplomatichistoriansand the reading public have taken relatively little notice. There has been a steady trickle of specialist works on British involvement in the region, but this has barely made an impact on the general approach to the study of inter-war Britishforeignpolicy. The smallnumber of relevantscholarlyworksis in itself indicative of a stubborn resistance by diplomatic historians to re-evaluate 754 SEER, 8 i, 4, 2003 Britishgeopolitical aims, priorities,and entanglements in Europe as a whole. Consequently, it is rather refreshing to encounter an academic study that describesBritishinvolvement in East-CentralEuropebetween I908 and 1948 as 'an early chapter in the political and intellectualEuropeanizationof Great Britain'(p. 23). This may strikethe readeras an extremelybold claim. Persistentobjections to the ossified thesis of British disinterest in the countries east and south of Germany have made a surprisinglysmall impression,even within the narrow field of East European studies. Sixty-three years after the death of Neville Chamberlain, his notorious words about 'far-away countries' of which the British public 'knew nothing' still ring in the historian's ears. Although it stands to reason that Chamberlain's premiership involved 'precisely a reaffirmation[. . .] of that Britishengagement with east-centralEuropewhich had firstbeen entered into as a resultof WorldWarOne' (p. I5), in the public eye Chamberlainremainsa symbol of Britishindifferencetowardsthe region. Robert Evans himself admits that 'the principal appeasers [... .] knew much less of the central European situation' (p. I7) than their critics;nonetheless, he describes appeasement as a 'forwardpolicy' with respect to East-Central Europe. Forhim, 1948, ratherthan I938...