This book pursues an original perspective on Europe's shifting extent and geopolitical standing: how countries and spaces marginal to it impact on Europe as a center. A theoretical discussion of borders and margins is developed, and set against nine studies of countries, regions, and identities seen as marginal to Europe.

PART I: THE NATURE OF MARGINAL FORMATIONS Introduction: Space Centres, and Margins: the Constructive and the Constructed; N.Parker Delimitation: The Denigration of Boundaries in the Political Thought of Late Modernity; S.Prosorov Power and Marginality in the International System: A Historical Perspective; P.Joenniemmi &  N.Parker PART II: MARGINS AROUND EUROPE Exploiting Marginality: The Case of Russia; M.David An Encounter of Two Marginalities: EU-Russia Trans-Border Relations in Russian Discourse; A.S.Makarychev Denmark's and Britain's Marginality Strategies Compared; N.Parker Europe and a Globalizing USA: Political Ideals Projected and Counter-Projected; N.Parker Gibraltar, Jerusalem, Kaliningrad: Peripherality, Marginality, Hybridity; C.Browning & P.Joenniemmi Notions of Europe: Where Does Europe's Southern Margin Lie?; M.Pace The Ritual of Listening to Foreigner: Appropriating Geopolitics in Central Europe; M.Kuus Between the Balkans and Europe: Boundary Making in Contemporary Croatian and Slovenian Discourse; N.Lindstrom Variable Geometries: Institutions, Power, and Ideas in Turkey's European Integration Process; F.Tassinari Conclusion; N.Parker