The Demise of Communist East Europe: 1989 in Context / Edition 1

by Robin Okey

Overview

This book charts the demise of east European communism and analyses the failure of the communist experiment, the revolutionary events of 1989 and the post-communist aftermath as the legacy of both these processes. The author explains communism's initial ability to survive crises but then its cumulative decline in the face of dissidence, economic weakness and reform movements. By analysing these issues in the context of the regions drive since the nineteenth-century to catch up with western Europe, this book concludes that the events of 1989 can cast light more widely still, on the fortunes of the three great ideas that the continent as a whole derived from revolutionary France: liberalism, socialism and nationalism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780340740576
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/28/2004
Series:	Historical Endings
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.51(d)

About the Author

Robin Okey is Reader in History at the University of Warwick

Table of Contents

	Preface	vii
Part I	Causes: failure of an experiment
1	A flawed legacy	3
2	The 1980s: a flawed society	24
3	The centre cannot hold	46
4	The demise of communism: breach and balance sheet	66
Part II	Course: revolution and system change
5	Autumn 1989	83
6	System change: the liberal moment in east-central Europe	107
7	Balkan vicissitudes	131
Part III	Consequences: towards a new eastern Europe
8	The internal dimension: an end to transition?	157
9	1989 in the international context	175
	Notes	195
	Bibliography	211
	Index	227

Editorial Reviews

"This is a thoughtful study by a historian who is skilled in finding patterns and continuities. It gives a much-needed balance to the many sociological, political science, and economic studies on related topics. Highly recommended."—CHOICE

From the Publisher

This is a thoughtful study by a historian who is skilled in finding patterns and continuities. It gives a much-needed balance to the many sociological, political science, and economic studies on related topics. Highly recommended.

CHOICE