New Books In Eastern European Studies

There are certain dates that every European historian knows. Among them are 1348 (The Black Death), 1517 (The Reformation), 1648 (The Peace of Westphalia), 1789 (The French Revolution), 1848 (The Revolutions of 1848), 1914 (The beginning of World War I), 1933 (Hitler comes to power), and 1945 (The end of World War II). Two decades ago we added another date to the roster of “historical” years–1989. In ’89 the world really did change: the hallmark of an entire historical epoch–the struggle between the Capitalist West and the Communist East–came to a sudden end. The Berlin Wall came down, the Soviets withdrew from Eastern Europe, the Communist Parties of Eastern Europe relinquished power, new democratic states emerged, and people danced in the streets. At least for a while. To say that nobody saw ’89 coming would be a bit of an exaggeration: people had been predicting the decline of Soviet power in Eastern Europe for decades. Like all regularly made predictions (“Prices will fall…”), this one eventually came tru