“…National myths are now seriously questioned in a number of societies. In the West, for instance, a number of factors have combined to destabilise the symbolic foundation of nations and collective identities. …”

“…It spans European literature from the West (French, German, Italian) to the East (Church Slavonic), vernacular and Latin; it contrasts modes of liturgical meditation in the Western and Eastern Church with secular plays and songs, and it brings together studies on the character of 'voice' in major medieval authors such as Dante with examples of Dante-reception in the early twentieth century…”

“…The articles in this volume refer both to the tendency to persist and to the potential for change that characterized the reinstitutionalization of West German historical studies after 1945. The obstacles that German and French historians had to overcome in order to enter into scientific communication after the war run through the volume like a red thread. …”

“…The early modern and modern cultural world in the West would be unthinkable without Petrarch and Boccaccio. …”

“…A relevant contribution is offered both: 1. to the complex and (almost) anonymous tradition of fables between the ancient Greek Aesop and the Medieval Latin Romulus, and through Phaedrus, Avian and the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana; 2. and to the role fables played in the second-language (L2) acquisition and in teaching/learning Latin as L2 between East and West…”

“…The Antitribonian of the French jurist François Hotman points to the vertex of a path begun almost 150 years before that inaugurated a new stage of the legal culture of the West. Written in 1567, it was published for the first time in 1603 in French and, later, had great influence in the Germanic area thanks to its Latin version. …”

“…Because of its strategic location between East and West, Venice rapidly rose to a position of preeminence in Mediterranean trade. …”

“…"Case studies of metropolitan cities in nine African countries - from Egypt in the north to three in West and Central Africa, two in East Africa and three in Southern Africa - make up the empirical foundation of this publication. …”

“…Die Regierung Tansanias setzte beim Aufbau eines eigenständigen Afrikanischen Sozialismus auch auf Expertise, Kredite und Stipendien aus Ost und West. Diese Unterstützung galt als Notwendigkeit, aber auch als Bedrohung, konnte es sich beim Entwicklungspersonal aus kapitalistischen und kommunistischen Ländern doch immer um "trojanische Pferde" handeln. …”