" ...attempting to connect the overarching with the underpinning, in this important and conceptually innovative book." -- Robert Levgold, Foreign Affairs

By drilling deep into the mundane conversations, cares, and relationships among citizens of Cluj-Napoca...[the authors] set out to examine precisely how ethnicity matters...[An] important and conceptually innovative book. -- Robert Levgold Foreign Affairs Provides a reality check for those who continue to operate under the myths of the past, while offering valuable insights into the mundane inner workings of everyday ethnicity in the old borderlands of the Russian, Turkish, and Austro-Hungarian empires...The most important contribution of the book is its ability to demystify nationhood in East Central Europe. -- Robert A. Saunders Transitions This fascinating, richly detailed, and highly informative study of Cluj in the mixed Hungarian-Romanian Transylvanian part of Romania is based on fieldwork conducted between 1995 and 2001...This is a must read for anyone interested in ethnic or national identity in eastern Europe or, indeed, in any area contested by groups using ethnic or nationalist symbols to announce their presence and promote their interests. -- D. Ashley Choice This substantial volume, with its vivid portrayal of the shifting dimensions of ethnicity in Romanian-Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca... is a welcome addition both to theory challenging romantic, essentialist identity models as well as to our knowledge of the inner workings of central European life... Given its strong arguments and impressive array of data about the resourceful, performative, everyday qualities of ethnicity, this book deserves a wide readership. -- David A. Kideckel Slavic Review --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.