Chapter 1 discusses the basics of Albanian history. Is it a history of a space or of an ethnic community? The spatial expansion and spatial concepts as well as the definition of the term Albanian are discussed. The history of Albanophones in the southwestern Balkans is the focus of this section. Albanian history prior to 1912 is not the history of a state, but of Albanians and their diverse contacts with other language groups with whom they lived in close contact and with whom they shared extentive cultural exchanges. Due to the lack of written sources, the Albanian language has been the most important document in understanding Albanian cultural history. In addition, the modern national self-image of Albanians is based on language. Accordingly, the linguistic dimension of Albanian history is discussed in some detail. Closely related to this are politically sensitive questions of settlement and migration history: Where did the ancestors of contemporary Albanians live in antiquity? Are they autochthonous or immigrant? We develop a model of the history of cultural integration in the southwestern Balkans in the context of these questions.

Chapter 5 describes the transformation of a section of Arnavutluk into the modern Albanian state. The new independent Albania was proclaimed by the predominantly Sunni elite when Ottoman rule collapsed in the First Balkan War in 1912 and Albanian settlement areas seemed on the verge of being divided between Serbia, Montenegro and Greece. With the onset of the First World War, the fledgling state was faced with foreign occupation, and threats to its territorial integrity and to its very existence. The chapter examines how in the immediate aftermath of the war, Albanian leaders, meeting at the Congress of Lushnjë, struggled to create a functioning state apparatus but were quickly faced with political conflict which led to coups, assassinations and general instability. In this chaos, power was dominated by those with independent access to armed forces, resulting in the rise of the tribal leader Ahmet Zogu. Fearing his increasing authoritarianism, opposing forced mounted a revolution which ousted Zogu and allowed the construction of a short-lived generally progressive regime. Within six months, however, a counter-revolution brought Zogu back to power.

Chapter 7 describes events in Albania during the Second World War. During this critical period, two different Albanias are constructed. Following the Italian invasion a series of puppet regimes are installed which initially gain some support as Rome invests heavily in much-needed infrastructure and general development. Mussolini hopes to gain further support by encouraging "Greater Albania" dreams through his ultimately disastrous invasion of Greece. The chapter examines the formation of the Albanian Communist Party and the resultant growth in resistance movements. With the Italian collapse, the Germans invade and occupy Albania, constructing their own puppet regimes that gain only limited support. As the end of the war nears, the resistance degenerates into civil war. With the help of extensive British aid, the communist-dominated partisans, as the only national movement and the only group untainted by collaboration, are victorious and construct a new regime. The chapter concludes with an evaluation of the profound impact of the war.

Chapter 4 describes developments in the nineteenth century when the Ottoman empire initiated military and administrative reforms in response to military defeats, particularly against Russia. In the southwestern Balkans, Albanian Sunnis resisted any change in their privileged position vis-à-vis the Christian population. Sunni Albanians were among the conservative and anti-reform forces in the Ottoman empire. When Christian nation-states emerged in the Balkans following the uprisings in Greece and Serbia, major European powers intervened ever more arressively in the Ottoman Balkans. In that context, Christians and Bektashi Muslims began to design an Albanian national program. These national activists struggled to overcome both religious differences and distinct regional special identities. The loss of territory by the Ottomans in the Balkans after the Berlin Congress (1878) also mobilized the Sunnis, who increasingly feared the collapse of the empire. The Albanian Balkan provinces of the Ottoman empire developed into a laboratory for competing identity politics by local actors and the major European powers.

Chapter 6 traces Albania’s descent into authoritarianism under the regimes of Zogu. Albania is first transformed into a republic with Zogu as president wielding considerable executive power. Within four years he abandoned the republic and created a monarchy and ruled as King Zog with unfettered power. With politics removed as a obstacle to unity and stability, Zog proceeded to attempt to create a nation out of disparate religious and cultural communities. The results are mixed at best as desperate economic conditions drove the king into increasing dependence on Mussolini’s Italy. The funds obtained are poorly allocated and necessary reforms, like agrarian reform, are not implemented as the king relied too heavily on the support of major landowners. The Italians, in the meantime, insinuated themselves into most aspects of government and the administration to the extent that Albania became little more than an Italian colonial outpost. Not satisfied with anything less that complete control, Mussolini is finally convinced by German moves elsewhere in the Balkans, and by his foreign minister’s insistence that Albania contained vast riches in terms of natural resources, to invade and annex Albania, driving the king and his family into exile. The chapter concludes with an evaluation of the achievements and failures of the Zog era.

Chapter 2 traces Albanian history through the Roman and Byzantine periods. The ancestors of contemporary Albanians were well integrated into these empires. The Latin influence on the Albanian language is correspondingly strong. In late antiquity, the Roman empire recruited an important part of its elite from the southwestern Balkans. The arrival of Slavic groups in the Balkans led to the collapse of state administration and the church and thus to a cultural turning point that was much more profound than in Western Europe. It was not until the ninth century that Byzantium was primarily re-Christianized. The Albanians came under the influence of the new Slavic states in the Balkans. Urban communities flourished particularly along the coast. The region was closely intertwined with the Venetian-Adriatic culture, but also with Byzantine civilization. With the decline of Byzantium, the southwestern Balkan region splintered into numerous small dominions. Venice, the Kingdom of Naples and, from the end of the fourteenth century, the Ottomans vied for influence. Albania was one of the first areas in the Balkans conquered by the Ottomans and nowhere was the resistance to the new empire as fierce as in Albania. Georg Kastriota Scanderbeg, who is revered as a national hero today, is symbolic of this resistence.

Chapter 3 describes how profoundly the Ottoman conquest changed Albania. Devastation and flight completely altered the settlement structures, especially in the north. Albanians fled not only to Italy but also into the mountains, where they organized themselves into tribal structures. On the plains and especially in the south, many people came to terms with the new empire. Islamized Albanians became an essential pillar of the Ottoman military and administrative structures. Until around 1600 the southwestern Balkans remained mostly Christian, either Orthodox or Catholic. In the course of the seventeenth century, most Albanians converted to Islam for various reasons making the region even more religiously diverse. In addition to Sunni Islam, the Bektashi dervish order, which had absorbed Shiite and Christian influences, also established itself. In the early modern period, three religious cultures coexisted side by side, Orthodox, Catholic, and Muslim, whose adherents maintained cultural contacts not only with each other, but also with their co-religionists outside the area. The southwestern Balkans formed a peripheral zone of the empire. The imperial administration could barely control the mountain regions in a sustainable way. The result was a legal pluralism, with many Albanians, especially in the mountain areas, seeing customary law as a pillar of their identity and their special political position.