Description
Book SynopsisThe familiar story of Soviet power in Cold War Eastern Europe focuses on political repression and military force. But in Empire of Friends, Rachel Applebaum shows how the Soviet Union simultaneously promoted a policy of transnational friendship with its Eastern Bloc satellites to create a cohesive socialist world. This friendship project...
Trade ReviewWell documented and including an extensive bibliography, this is a book for those interested in the Soviet empire and its political methods.
* Choice *
Applebaum has written an outstanding, well-researched, nuanced, and honest book.
* The Russian Review *
Applebaum makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the cultural dynamics of the socialist bloc... her book will be read with interest by specialists and could be successful in graduate courses on Eastern Europe or the Cold War.
* H-Net *
Applebaum's book is an exemplary scholarly achievement, thanks to its wide-ranging sources, meticulous analysis, and the author's stimulating approach to the subject matter. Empire of Friends will not only be of interest to historians of Central and East European communism, transnational experience and the Cold War but to scholars in the broader social sciences who wish to enrich their theoretical assumptions of Soviet hegemony and soft power through this nuanced empirical analysis of socialist lived experience.
* Europe-Asia Studies *
Applebaum's book opens up important new perspectives on the transnational ties between the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia.
* AB IMPERIO *
Empire of Friends presents some intriguing new findings about bilateral relations between the two countries. [I]t is a valuable addition to the growing scholarly literature on the ways in which ordinary citizens participated in the Communist experiment.
* Journal of Modern History *
