Abstract
The book Ethnic Groups, Boundaries and Identities is devoted to a dominating topic in the social sciences - ethnic groups and identities. Ethnic phenomena and processes are among the basic determinants of the human world.
Their significance today is as strong as ever despite the many voices of intellectuals from highly varying camps, such as Soviet ideologists of Marxism or proponents of the free market in the USA who predicted their swift demise already one hundred years ago. Not only ethno-revivalist movements of indigenous groups or other minority groups are of an ethnic character; ethnicity also stands at the core of many of the most destructive military conflicts of the previous decades.
Ethnic phenomena thus continue to be key factors that influence the shape of societies, from daily interactions between individuals on a local level to relationships between states on an international level. Understanding the nature of the formation and maintenance of ethnic identities and groups is still one of the fundamental paths to grasping (not only) today's world.