The Story of the Book - How the ‘Oxford Handbook of Medieval Central Europe 800 – 1600’ was Made

The ‘Oxford Handbook of Medieval Central Europe 800 – 1600’ was conceived in Budapest, Hungary in 2014, outlined in Olomouc, Czechia in 2016 and finally published by Oxford University Press in 2022.

In this interview, the joint editors of the book, Nada Zecevic and Daniel Ziemann, discuss the process of creating a Handbook that consists of twenty-four chapters written by over fifty different scholars spread throughout the world. They discuss how the book’s style and content was created, how the boundaries of chronology and geography were defined and agreed upon, and how they managed the many challenges of such an extensive subject and ambitious project. Nada and Daniel also reflect on the final chapter of the Handbook and consider the use, and potential abuse, of medieval history and the role that historians should play in presenting medieval history.