Winner of the 2020 Verbruggen prize , awarded annually by the De Re Militari society for the best book on medieval military history. The awarding committee commented that the book 'has an enormous range, and yet is exceptionally scholarly with a fine grasp of detail. Its title points to a general history of eastern Europe, but it is dominated by military episodes which make it of the highest value to anybody writing about war and warmaking in this very neglected area of Europe.' "It is an impressive achievement [.] Readers with different goals and backgrounds will undoubtedly approach the individual chapters differently, but most will praise the bibliography in volume 2, which is a good guide to the literature of the field. Further, scholars frustrated by an inability to keep up with new publications will surely welcome these two volumes eagerly. Summing Up: Recommended''. W.

L.Urban, in Choice 57 (7), 2020. "This book is a pioneering attempt to offer a companion to the history of Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages between 500 and 1300 [.] The relatively short chapters are masterfully balanced between events of political and ecclesiastical history and the evaluation of sources, material culture, archaeological findings, and written texts (with carefully selected figures and tables) [.] it provides an exciting medieval narrative that presents coherent access to the present state of historical research on this topic. Even for "native" historians the book offers many novelties, and probably much more for those who read other world languages". László Veszprémy, in Speculum 95/4 (October 2020). "Florin Curta has gifted the scholarly community with a much desired and successful guide to the medieval history of two-thirds of the European continent [.

] Curta's companion is a splendid venture for researchers seeking orientation into the vast scholarship on eastern Europe, a great achievement of the author's outstanding work". Pawel Figurski, in Early Medieval Europe 29 (4), 2021.