Exit from Communism

Exit from Communism PDF Author: Stephen R. Graubard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000676730
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 267

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since 1989, it has been possible to review what has been published both at home and abroad on the communist states of Central and Eastern Europe and, no less importantly, on the Soviet Union itself, from a new perspective. Few have chosen to engage in this Herculean task, whether out of a residual civility in not wishing to mock certain aging scholars whose research would appear curiously dated, or out of a sense of fatigue with the whole subject of casting aspersions on mistaken views. A New Europe for the Old? asks whether the master narratives that circulated so widely in the West in the half-century since 1945 remain valid. Stephen Graubard's volume raises pertinent questions regarding the current state of the European world as it has evolved since 1989. He includes contributions from important scholars around the world: "A New Europe for the Old?" by Martin Malia; "The Serbs: The Sweet and Rotten Smell of History" by Tim Judah; "Illyrianism and the Croatian Quest for Statehood" by Marcus Tanner; "To Be or Not to Be Balkan: Romania's Quest for Self-Definition" by Tom Gallagher; "Ukraine: From an Imperial Periphery to Sovereign State" by Roman Szporlunk; "Ethnic Nationalism in the Russian Federation" by Anatoly M. Khazanov; "Im Osten viel Neues: Plenty of News from the Eastern Lnder" by Barbara Ischinger; "Discourse and (Dis)Integration in Europe: The Cases of France, Germany, and Great Britain" by Vivien A. Schmidt; "The European Debate on Citizenship" by Dominique Schnapper; "Has the Nation Died? The Debate Over Italy's Identity (and Future)" by Dario Biocca; and "Postwar Europe" by Arne Roth. A New Europe for the Old? provides greater sympathy for the complexity of societies, and argues for greater tolerance of those that are small, and that do not cast a long shadow in the world of today. In the twenty-first as in the twentieth century, they may be engines of change, both as a result of the disorder that they produce as well as the ways in which their values, however seemingly antiquated, survive and prosper, and not only in their native lands. This volume will intrigue historians and European studies scholars alike.

Exit from Communism

Exit from Communism PDF Author: Stephen R. Graubard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000676730
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 267

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since 1989, it has been possible to review what has been published both at home and abroad on the communist states of Central and Eastern Europe and, no less importantly, on the Soviet Union itself, from a new perspective. Few have chosen to engage in this Herculean task, whether out of a residual civility in not wishing to mock certain aging scholars whose research would appear curiously dated, or out of a sense of fatigue with the whole subject of casting aspersions on mistaken views. A New Europe for the Old? asks whether the master narratives that circulated so widely in the West in the half-century since 1945 remain valid. Stephen Graubard's volume raises pertinent questions regarding the current state of the European world as it has evolved since 1989. He includes contributions from important scholars around the world: "A New Europe for the Old?" by Martin Malia; "The Serbs: The Sweet and Rotten Smell of History" by Tim Judah; "Illyrianism and the Croatian Quest for Statehood" by Marcus Tanner; "To Be or Not to Be Balkan: Romania's Quest for Self-Definition" by Tom Gallagher; "Ukraine: From an Imperial Periphery to Sovereign State" by Roman Szporlunk; "Ethnic Nationalism in the Russian Federation" by Anatoly M. Khazanov; "Im Osten viel Neues: Plenty of News from the Eastern Lnder" by Barbara Ischinger; "Discourse and (Dis)Integration in Europe: The Cases of France, Germany, and Great Britain" by Vivien A. Schmidt; "The European Debate on Citizenship" by Dominique Schnapper; "Has the Nation Died? The Debate Over Italy's Identity (and Future)" by Dario Biocca; and "Postwar Europe" by Arne Roth. A New Europe for the Old? provides greater sympathy for the complexity of societies, and argues for greater tolerance of those that are small, and that do not cast a long shadow in the world of today. In the twenty-first as in the twentieth century, they may be engines of change, both as a result of the disorder that they produce as well as the ways in which their values, however seemingly antiquated, survive and prosper, and not only in their native lands. This volume will intrigue historians and European studies scholars alike.

Between Past and Future

Between Past and Future PDF Author: Sorin Antohi
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633860032
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 427

Get Book Here

Book Description
The tenth anniversary of the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe is the basis for this text which reflects upon the past ten years and what lies ahead for the future. An international group of academics and public intellectuals, including former dissidents and active politicians, engage in an exchange on the antecedents, causes, contexts, meanings and legacies of the 1989 revolutions. The contributors address various issues including liberal democracy and its enemies; modernity and discontent; economic reforms and their social impact; ethnicity; nationalism and religion; geopolitics; electoral systems and political power; European integration; and the demise of Yugoslavia.

Budapest Exit

Budapest Exit PDF Author: Csaba Teglas
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 9781585446407
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Get Book Here

Book Description
When Csaba Teglas was confronted with the Nazi invasion of Hungary during World War II, the Soviet occupation following the Allied victory, and finally with the opportunity to escape the oppressive regime during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he responded not with fear, indecision, or submission, but with courage, ingenuity, and hope. In Budapest Exit: A Memoir of Fascism, Communism, and Freedom, Teglas begins with the story of his childhood in Hungary. During the war, the dramatic changes that took place in his country intensified with the invasion of the Nazis. The Nazis' defeat after the terrifying siege of Budapest should have led to freedom, but for Hungary it meant occupation by the Soviets, who were often little better than the fascists. A twelve-year-old friend of Teglas was forced to watch the brutal gang rape of a Jewish family member by the same Soviet soldiers who liberated her from the Nazis. Despite the difficulties of life in Budapest, Teglas met the challenge when sustenance of the family fell on his young shoulders. One of the innovative ways he earned money was to employ his playments to extract ball bearings from wrecked tanks and other military vehicles that he then sold to factories. He also sold rubber rings cut from bicycle tubes to use as canning seals. Before the communists solidified their rule, Teglas obtained admission to the Technical University of Budapest, where he earned a degree despite constant interference in the University by the communists. The following years under the Stalinist dictatorship were the harshest, and Teglas and his family and friends lived in constant fear; some were even subjected to the communist jails and torture chambers. But rather than standing idly by, Teglas protested, sometimes quietly, sometimes more vocally, against the Soviet and communist presence in Hungary. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Teglas became more involved in the opposition to the communists. When it became clear that the revolutionaries were not going to succeed, he knew he had to leave Hungary to avoid retaliation for his involvement. Teglas recounts his dramatic escape through the heavily guarded Iron Curtain and his subsequent emigration to North America, where life an an immigrant presented new challenges. Teglas compares the genocide and tragedies of Nazi order in World War II and of communist rule to recent international events and ethnic cleansing in Central and Eastern Europe, including the former Yugoslavia. He also highlights the failure of the West to stop the war in Bosnia expediently and the possible far-reaching consequences of a "peace" treaty that aims to satisfy the demands of the aggressors while ignoring the rights of others in the Balkans. Even more, though, this memoir is Csaba Teglas's personal story of his youth, told from the point of view of a man with sons of his own. He found in America the freedom for which he had been searching, but he has raised his American sons to remain proud of their Hungarian heritage.

Exit-Voice Dynamics and the Collapse of East Germany

Exit-Voice Dynamics and the Collapse of East Germany PDF Author: Steven Pfaff
Publisher: Duke University Press Books
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 366

Get Book Here

Book Description
DIVA critical and comparative reexamination of the East German revolution of 1989 and its aftermath, suggesting which causal mechanisms account for the collapse of the East German state and German reunification./div

Fully Automated Luxury Communism

Fully Automated Luxury Communism PDF Author: Aaron Bastani
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786632640
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Get Book Here

Book Description
Fully Automated Luxury Communism promises a radically new left future for everyone. New technologies will liberate us from work, providing the opportunity to build a society beyond both capitalism and scarcity. Automation, rather than undermining an economy built on full employment, is instead the path to a world of liberty, luxury and happiness. Solar power will deliver the energy that we need, while asteroid mining will deliver the necessary resources, allowing us to end the devastation of our environment. Innovations in AI, gene editing, food technology will leads us to new ways of living better lives. In his first book, radical political commentator Aaron Bastani conjures a new politics: a vision of a world of unimaginable hope, highlighting how we move to energy abundance, feed a world of nine billion, overcome work, transcend the limits of biology and build meaningful freedom for everyone. Rather than a final destination, such a society heralds the beginning of history.

Arguing about Justice

Arguing about Justice PDF Author: Yannick Vanderborght
Publisher: Presses univ. de Louvain
ISBN: 2874632759
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 423

Get Book Here

Book Description
Fifty of today's finest thinkers were asked to let their imaginations run free to advance new ideas on a wide range of social and political issues. They did so as friends, on the occasion of Philippe Van Parijs's sixtieth birthday.

The Cambridge History of Communism

The Cambridge History of Communism PDF Author: Norman Naimark
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781107133549
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 700

Get Book Here

Book Description
The second volume of The Cambridge History of Communism explores the rise of Communist states and movements after World War II. Leading experts analyze archival sources from formerly Communist states to re-examine the limits to Moscow's control of its satellites; the de-Stalinization of 1956; Communist reform movements; the rise and fall of the Sino-Soviet alliance; the growth of Communism in Asia, Africa and Latin America; and the effects of the Sino-Soviet split on world Communism. Chapters explore the cultures of Communism in the United States, Western Europe and China, and the conflicts engendered by nationalism and the continued need for support from Moscow. With the danger of a new Cold War developing between former and current Communist states and the West, this account of the roots, development and dissolution of the socialist bloc is essential reading.

Communism and the Emergence of Democracy

Communism and the Emergence of Democracy PDF Author: Harald Wydra
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139462180
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description
Before democracy becomes an institutionalised form of political authority, the rupture with authoritarian forms of power causes deep uncertainty about power and outcomes. This book connects the study of democratisation in eastern Europe and Russia to the emergence and crisis of communism. Wydra argues that the communist past is not simply a legacy but needs to be seen as a social organism in gestation, where critical events produce new expectations, memories and symbols that influence meanings of democracy. By examining a series of pivotal historical events, he shows that democratisation is not just a matter of institutional design, but rather a matter of consciousness and leadership under conditions of extreme and traumatic incivility. Rather than adopting the opposition between non-democratic and democratic, Wydra argues that the communist experience must be central to the study of the emergence and nature of democracy in (post-) communist countries.

Exit Right

Exit Right PDF Author: Daniel Oppenheimer
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416589716
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 4

Get Book Here

Book Description
Oppenheimer takes a provocative, intimate look at the evolution of America's political soul through the lives of six political figures who abandoned the left and joined the right: Whittaker Chambers, James Burnham, Ronald Reagan, Norman Podhoretz, David Horowitz, and Christopher Hitchens. The result is an unusually intimate history of the American left, and the right's reaction.

Secondhand Time

Secondhand Time PDF Author: Svetlana Alexievich
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0399588817
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 518

Get Book Here

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A symphonic oral history about the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia, from Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY • LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing “a new kind of literary genre,” describing her work as “a history of emotions—a history of the soul.” Alexievich’s distinctive documentary style, combining extended individual monologues with a collage of voices, records the stories of ordinary women and men who are rarely given the opportunity to speak, whose experiences are often lost in the official histories of the nation. In Secondhand Time, Alexievich chronicles the demise of communism. Everyday Russian citizens recount the past thirty years, showing us what life was like during the fall of the Soviet Union and what it’s like to live in the new Russia left in its wake. Through interviews spanning 1991 to 2012, Alexievich takes us behind the propaganda and contrived media accounts, giving us a panoramic portrait of contemporary Russia and Russians who still carry memories of oppression, terror, famine, massacres—but also of pride in their country, hope for the future, and a belief that everyone was working and fighting together to bring about a utopia. Here is an account of life in the aftermath of an idea so powerful it once dominated a third of the world. A magnificent tapestry of the sorrows and triumphs of the human spirit woven by a master, Secondhand Time tells the stories that together make up the true history of a nation. “Through the voices of those who confided in her,” The Nation writes, “Alexievich tells us about human nature, about our dreams, our choices, about good and evil—in a word, about ourselves.” A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Financial Times, Kirkus Reviews