This revised and expanded book brings to light the structural and socioeconomic conditions that shaped the modern formations of ethnic Albanians, a process informed by the demise of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires at the end of World War I and the corresponding rise of British, French, American, and Italian capitalist interests in the western Balkans. In a history covering 150 years, Ottoman-Albanian subjects prove crucial in Southeast Europe to the kinds of transformations in the larger world that are today framed in terms of Modernity. As argued throughout, that process of Ottoman-Albanian agency demands a revisionist exploration of national identity prior to, and during, the establishment of the nation-state. Tied to the transformations in the larger Eastern Mediterranean, this revised and expanded study initiates a challenge to conventional historic accounts of the modern era in not only the Balkans, but larger Eurasia and the Middle East as well.

Isa Blumi Professor in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden and affiliated Professor of Balkan History at the University of Prishtina, Republic of Kosova.