Description
Book SynopsisThe book provides an analysis that takes into account the complexities of the Soviet bloc, the events' impact upon Europe, and their re-interpretation within a larger global context. Departs from static ways of analysis (events and their significance); bringing forth approaches that deal with both pre-1989 developments and with the 1989 context itself, while extensively discussing the ways of resituating 1989 in the larger context of the 20th century and of its lessons for the 21st. Emphasizes the possibility for re-thinking and re-visiting the filters and means that scholars use to interpret such turning point. The editors perceive the present project as a challenge to existing readings on the complex set of issues and topics presupposed by a re-evaluation of 1989 as a symbol of the change and transition from authoritarianism to democracy.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Preliminaries Rethinking 1989 Part One: Memories and Legacies of 1989 Purposes of the Past Twenty Years After 1989 Moderate Modernity and the Spirit of 1989 People Power? Towards a Historical Explanation of 1989 Was 1989 the End of Social-Democracy? Part Two: Moving Away from the Cold War The Demise of the Soviet Bloc Gorbachev and the Road to 1989 Success Was Not an Orphan: The Battle of the Euromissiles in 1983 and the Events of 1989 to 1991 "No One is Afraid to Talk to Us Anymore". Radio Free Europe in 1989 Part Three: Eastern Europe in 1989 Communism and Nationalism before and after 1989 Where Was the Serbian Havel? Communism and the Experience of Light Electrification and Legitimization in USSR and Romania before 1989 Buying Time: Consumption and Political Legitimization in Late-Communist Czechoslovakia The Second Hat: Romanian Media-Mass from Party Loudspeaker to the Voice of the Oligarchs Part Four: Aftermaths of Extraordinary Times Totalitarian Discourse and Ceaușescu's Loss of Words: Memorializing Rhetoric in 1989 Romania "A Spectre is Haunting Europe...": Dissidents, Intellectuals and a New Generation Memory, Justice and Democratization in Post-Communism Transitional Justice and the Politicization of Memory in post-1989 Europe Incredible Voyage: Romania's Communist Speculators Adapt and Survive After 1989 In the Footsteps of 1989: Ukraine's Orange Revolution as a Carnival of Antipolitics Conclusion: Shades of Gray: Revisiting the Meanings of 1989
