The author of the study has examined the history of a group of workers, working in a home appliances manufacturing and other companies in Wroclaw between 1997 and 2007, and who were related to trade union Solidarity. He tries to answer the important question how the attitude of skilled and semi-skilled workers in East and Central Europe, maybe the most significant social segment in the society, developed to reject more and more bitterly the liberal elites that were their allies in the 1980s, while – lacking a credible left wing in politics – they became more and more open to neo-nationalist ideologies and parties propagating them. In the frame of a deep interview made with a worker-activist the author also tries to present what were the "self-defence" strategies applied by the workers in the storms of re-structuring and privatisation and how these strategies failed.

According to the author, nationalism can gather support from a broad range of groups in society, because it attracts very different groups on very different grounds and ways: for instance it provides political capital to the elite or gives the hope of integration to the middle and working classes – as answers to exclusions featuring the neoliberal social change. This argument goes beyond the superficial statement that Serbs had been polarised between two strong identities: the EU friendly democratic and the closed cycles of a radical national one.

It was the great surprise of the 2007/2008 football season that CFR – a not well known and relatively unsuccessful team before – won the Romanian National Championship and the Romanian Cup beating the 'traditional' and most prestigious team of the same city. The author gives an account on the history and present of both clubs and – in the era of new capitalism – presents the reconfiguration of the ethnical and class splits traditionally dividing the population of the city putting the Romanian/Hungarian-majority/minority divisions in social context.

More than 15 years have passed since the 1989 events draw the attention of the global public to the minders' movement but events developed since then put them into a different aspect. The frame of the analysis is the continuous interaction between actors (this approach emphasizes choice, spontaneity and indefiniteness) and circumstances or structure (the recurring patterns in thinking and behaviour that limit free actions of individuals). The study emphasizes that events developing between these two poles are not determined and are in a flux.

The Gaza War was the consequence of the policy of force rooting in the revisionist Zionism of the 1920s and expanding after Ariel Sharon took power in 2001 – a policy that was backed by the Bush-doctrine securing the solid support of a superpower over eight years. It would be too early to answer the question how the apparently diverging US and Israeli politics in the region – after Barack Obama set his new priorities in the Middle-East – can be consolidated.