Beyond the Balkans offers new perspectives on Southeast European history, envisaging the region's history as an integral part of European and global history. Debates about the mental map of "the Balkans" as the negative alter ego of the "the West" (Maria Todorova) and about the construction of the Balkans as a historical space sui generis (Holm Sundhaussen) provide points of departure. The essays treat an exemplary, yet broad set of topics designed to open up idle fields of research. They foster common and coherent methodological lines and establish a new agenda for future research --