"This is a fascinating, brilliant, compelling study of how many Europeans came to conceptualize the little-known 'barbarians' on the eastern fringes of Europe in the Enlightenment. . . . This new book goes still further in demonstrating how complex the whole question of recognizing difference and establishing what the definitions of civility were."—Anthony Pagden, Johns Hopkins University "A fine imaginative historian who makes a persuasive case for the origin of the concept "eastern Europe," [Wolff] has a tendency to base his assertions not only on the findings of his meticulous research but on theories he discovered in the work of the late Michel Foucault, who sought to disclose how knowledge, in the guise of various scientific "discourses," exercised a disciplinary power."—Slavic Review "Replete with meticulously annotated factual information, the book also contains colorful illustrations of Catholic-Orthodox, empire-colony and Slavic-Italian relations and a wealth of spirited anecdotes . . . .An excellent resource for scholars of this area."—Canadian Slavonic Papers "...an overwhelmingly thought-provoking book."—The Historical Journal "Drawing on a wide range of official sources—above all the end-of-mission relazioni of the Venetian governors of Dalmatia—and on contemporary literature, Wolff has written a stylish, thoughtful, and thought-provoking book which complements his important earlier study of the development in the Enlightenment of the idea of a gulf between an enlightened western and an unenlightened, uncivilized, eastern Europe. It will be of use to all those interested in Venice, its empire and its enlightenment in the eighteenth century, and in the question of changing national identity—particularly in the Balkans—between the eighteenth and the twentieth centuries."—History