Description
Book SynopsisThis book reassesses a defining historical, political and ideological moment in contemporary history: the 1989 revolutions in central and eastern Europe. Bringing together experts from a variety of disciplines, the volume examines the rapid dismantling of the communist regimes in the late 1980s and the transition to pluralism in the 1990s. -- .
Trade Review'this volume is rich in both theoretical insights and empirical detail'
Anna Grzymala-Busse, Slavonic and East European Review Volume 92, no.2 April 2014
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Table of ContentsTimeline - Eastern Europe, 1945-91
Leaders of East European and Soviet communist parties, 1945-91
East European communist parties and their post-communist successors
1.The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe: origins, processes, outcomes - Kevin McDermott and Matthew Stibbe
I. The historical longue durée
2. Echoes and precedents: 1989 in historical perspective - Robin Okey
II. The Gorbachev factor
3. The multifaceted external Soviet role in processes towards unanticipated revolutions - Mary Buckley
4. 'When your neighbour changes his wallpaper': the 'Gorbachev factor' and the collapse of the German Democratic Republic- Peter Grieder
III. The East European revolutions: internal and external perspectives
5. The demise of communism in Poland: a staged evolution or failed revolution? - Tom Junes
6. The international context of Hungarian transition, 1989: the view from Budapest - Lászl? Borhi
7. Creating security from below: peace movements in East and West Germany in the 1980s - Holger Nehring
8. The demise of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, 1987-89: a socio-economic perspective - Michal Pullmann
9. Discourse and power: the FSN and the mythologisation of the Romanian revolution - Kevin Adamson and Sergiu Florean
10. A revolution in two stages: the curiosity of the Bulgarian case - Elena Simeonova
IV. Then and now: continuity and change in the academic and cultural perceptions of the communist era and its aftermath
11. A hopeless case of optimism? Jürgen Kuczynski and the end of the GDR - Matthew Stibbe
12. Meanings of 1989: right-wing discourses in post-communist Poland - Artur Lipinski
13. From the 'thirst for change' and 'hunger for truth' to a 'revolution that hardly happened': public protests and reconstructions of the past in Bulgaria in the 1990s - Nikolai Vukov
14 Afterword: the discursive constitution of revolution and revolution envy - James Krapfl
Select bibliography
Index
