At the center of the story is a crucial decision Lumi makes in the last days of the Second World War: he has a chance to leave Albania on a refugee ship headed to Italy, but at the last moment he disembarks and returns home to his village. As it happens, he has chosen a grim existence. To survive, he is forced to work in a concrete factory, from which he watches friends and family members run afoul of repressive new laws. But even as the book skillfully depicts the slow suffocation of a whole society, it also celebrates the moments of love and hope that sustain the people and holds out the possibility that Lumi may have been right to remain at home.

    The author views theories of international relations both as an ideological expression of the modern state, and as a clear indication of the difficulties of thinking about a world politics distinct from relations among states. Theories are examined in the light of recent debates about modernity and post-modernity, the rearticulation of political space/time, and the limits of modern social political theory.