This book offers a comprehensive thousand-year history of the land, people, society, culture and economy of Hungary, from its nebulous origins in the Ural Mountains to the 1988 elections. It tells above all the thrilling story of a people who became a great power in the region and then fought against—and were invaded by—Ottomans, Germans and Soviets. The Hungarian people preserved nevertheless a continuous individuality through their Ural-born language and a specifically Hungaro-European culture.