This dictionary endeavors to provide a comprehensive overview, not only of Albanian history, but also of contemporary Albania as it enters the 21st century, focusing as it does both on the past and on a modern European nation struggling to put its formidable Stalinist past behind it. For half a century, Albania was a planet of its own, isolated from the rest of Mother Earth; since the fall of the communist regime, the Albanians have been striving, not without difficulty, to find their place among the nations of Europe. This work offers the reader basic, factual information on the country, its historical development, its current situation, and the culture of its people through its 700 entries.