The Middle KingdomsThe dramatic history of Europe's shape shifting centre, from the author of The Habsburgs Central Europe is not just a space on a map but also a region of shared experience of mutual borrowings, impositions and misapprehensions. From the Roman Empire onwards, it has been the target of invasion from the east. In the Middle Ages, Central Europeans cast their eastern foes as 'the dogmen'. They would later become the Turks, Swedes, Russians and Soviets,