Author: Mary Sarotte
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 0465064949
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
On the night of November 9, 1989, massive crowds surged toward the Berlin Wall, drawn by an announcement that caught the world by surprise: East Germans could now move freely to the West. The Wall—infamous symbol of divided Cold War Europe—seemed to be falling. But the opening of the gates that night was not planned by the East German ruling regime—nor was it the result of a bargain between either Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was an accident. In The Collapse, prize-winning historian Mary Elise Sarotte reveals how a perfect storm of decisions made by daring underground revolutionaries, disgruntled Stasi officers, and dictatorial party bosses sparked an unexpected series of events culminating in the chaotic fall of the Wall. With a novelist’s eye for character and detail, she brings to vivid life a story that sweeps across Budapest, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig and up to the armed checkpoints in Berlin. We meet the revolutionaries Roland Jahn, Aram Radomski, and Siggi Schefke, risking it all to smuggle the truth across the Iron Curtain; the hapless Politburo member Günter Schabowski, mistakenly suggesting that the Wall is open to a press conference full of foreign journalists, including NBC’s Tom Brokaw; and Stasi officer Harald Jäger, holding the fort at the crucial border crossing that night. Soon, Brokaw starts broadcasting live from Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, where the crowds are exulting in the euphoria of newfound freedom—and the dictators are plotting to restore control. Drawing on new archival sources and dozens of interviews, The Collapse offers the definitive account of the night that brought down the Berlin Wall.
The Collapse
Author: Mary Sarotte
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 0465064949
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
On the night of November 9, 1989, massive crowds surged toward the Berlin Wall, drawn by an announcement that caught the world by surprise: East Germans could now move freely to the West. The Wall—infamous symbol of divided Cold War Europe—seemed to be falling. But the opening of the gates that night was not planned by the East German ruling regime—nor was it the result of a bargain between either Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was an accident. In The Collapse, prize-winning historian Mary Elise Sarotte reveals how a perfect storm of decisions made by daring underground revolutionaries, disgruntled Stasi officers, and dictatorial party bosses sparked an unexpected series of events culminating in the chaotic fall of the Wall. With a novelist’s eye for character and detail, she brings to vivid life a story that sweeps across Budapest, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig and up to the armed checkpoints in Berlin. We meet the revolutionaries Roland Jahn, Aram Radomski, and Siggi Schefke, risking it all to smuggle the truth across the Iron Curtain; the hapless Politburo member Günter Schabowski, mistakenly suggesting that the Wall is open to a press conference full of foreign journalists, including NBC’s Tom Brokaw; and Stasi officer Harald Jäger, holding the fort at the crucial border crossing that night. Soon, Brokaw starts broadcasting live from Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, where the crowds are exulting in the euphoria of newfound freedom—and the dictators are plotting to restore control. Drawing on new archival sources and dozens of interviews, The Collapse offers the definitive account of the night that brought down the Berlin Wall.
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 0465064949
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
On the night of November 9, 1989, massive crowds surged toward the Berlin Wall, drawn by an announcement that caught the world by surprise: East Germans could now move freely to the West. The Wall—infamous symbol of divided Cold War Europe—seemed to be falling. But the opening of the gates that night was not planned by the East German ruling regime—nor was it the result of a bargain between either Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was an accident. In The Collapse, prize-winning historian Mary Elise Sarotte reveals how a perfect storm of decisions made by daring underground revolutionaries, disgruntled Stasi officers, and dictatorial party bosses sparked an unexpected series of events culminating in the chaotic fall of the Wall. With a novelist’s eye for character and detail, she brings to vivid life a story that sweeps across Budapest, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig and up to the armed checkpoints in Berlin. We meet the revolutionaries Roland Jahn, Aram Radomski, and Siggi Schefke, risking it all to smuggle the truth across the Iron Curtain; the hapless Politburo member Günter Schabowski, mistakenly suggesting that the Wall is open to a press conference full of foreign journalists, including NBC’s Tom Brokaw; and Stasi officer Harald Jäger, holding the fort at the crucial border crossing that night. Soon, Brokaw starts broadcasting live from Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, where the crowds are exulting in the euphoria of newfound freedom—and the dictators are plotting to restore control. Drawing on new archival sources and dozens of interviews, The Collapse offers the definitive account of the night that brought down the Berlin Wall.
Collapse
Author: Vladislav M. Zubok
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300262442
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 577
Book Description
A major study of the collapse of the Soviet Union—showing how Gorbachev’s misguided reforms led to its demise “A deeply informed account of how the Soviet Union fell apart.”—Rodric Braithwaite, Financial Times “[A] masterly analysis.”—Joshua Rubenstein, Wall Street Journal In 1945 the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four million strong with five thousand nuclear-tipped missiles and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the twentieth century. Thirty years on, Vladislav Zubok offers a major reinterpretation of the final years of the USSR, refuting the notion that the breakup of the Soviet order was inevitable. Instead, Zubok reveals how Gorbachev’s misguided reforms, intended to modernize and democratize the Soviet Union, deprived the government of resources and empowered separatism. Collapse sheds new light on Russian democratic populism, the Baltic struggle for independence, the crisis of Soviet finances—and the fragility of authoritarian state power.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300262442
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 577
Book Description
A major study of the collapse of the Soviet Union—showing how Gorbachev’s misguided reforms led to its demise “A deeply informed account of how the Soviet Union fell apart.”—Rodric Braithwaite, Financial Times “[A] masterly analysis.”—Joshua Rubenstein, Wall Street Journal In 1945 the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four million strong with five thousand nuclear-tipped missiles and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the twentieth century. Thirty years on, Vladislav Zubok offers a major reinterpretation of the final years of the USSR, refuting the notion that the breakup of the Soviet order was inevitable. Instead, Zubok reveals how Gorbachev’s misguided reforms, intended to modernize and democratize the Soviet Union, deprived the government of resources and empowered separatism. Collapse sheds new light on Russian democratic populism, the Baltic struggle for independence, the crisis of Soviet finances—and the fragility of authoritarian state power.
The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944-1945
Author: Alfred C. Mierzejewski
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 146963970X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
In this book Alfred Mierzejewski describes how the German economy collapsed under Allied bombing in the last year of World War II. He presents a broad-based, original study of German wartime industry and transportation, and of Allied air force planning and intelligence, including the first complete analysis in English of the German National Railway. The German industrial economy was extraordinarily dependent on the timely, adequate distribution of coal by railroad and inland waterway. The German National Railway in particular was the pivot of the finely balanced armaments production and distribution system created by Albert Speer. But Allied strategists did not immediately recognize this. Only in late 1944, when Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Sir Arthur Tedder built a new strategic consensus, was this vital coal/transport nexus severed. The result was the rapid paralysis of the Nazi war economy. Mierzejewski measures the economic consequences of the bombing by considering broad indices such as armaments and coal production, railway performance, and weapons deliveries to the armed forces. In addition, he shows how individual companies in each of Germany's major economic regions fared. By drawing on previously unexamined files of private German manufacturing companies, the Reich Transportation Ministry, and Allied air intelligence agencies, Mierzejewski creates a rare combination of economic analysis and military history that provides new perspectives on the German war economy and Allied air intelligence.
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 146963970X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
In this book Alfred Mierzejewski describes how the German economy collapsed under Allied bombing in the last year of World War II. He presents a broad-based, original study of German wartime industry and transportation, and of Allied air force planning and intelligence, including the first complete analysis in English of the German National Railway. The German industrial economy was extraordinarily dependent on the timely, adequate distribution of coal by railroad and inland waterway. The German National Railway in particular was the pivot of the finely balanced armaments production and distribution system created by Albert Speer. But Allied strategists did not immediately recognize this. Only in late 1944, when Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Sir Arthur Tedder built a new strategic consensus, was this vital coal/transport nexus severed. The result was the rapid paralysis of the Nazi war economy. Mierzejewski measures the economic consequences of the bombing by considering broad indices such as armaments and coal production, railway performance, and weapons deliveries to the armed forces. In addition, he shows how individual companies in each of Germany's major economic regions fared. By drawing on previously unexamined files of private German manufacturing companies, the Reich Transportation Ministry, and Allied air intelligence agencies, Mierzejewski creates a rare combination of economic analysis and military history that provides new perspectives on the German war economy and Allied air intelligence.
War and Collapse
Author: M. Hakan Yavuz
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781607814610
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
An unprecedented scholarly effort surveying the very important, but neglected role of and consequences for the Ottoman state of World War I
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781607814610
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
An unprecedented scholarly effort surveying the very important, but neglected role of and consequences for the Ottoman state of World War I
The End of the Cold War and the Causes of Soviet Collapse
Author: N. Bisley
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230000541
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
Soviet efforts to end the Cold War were intended to help revitalize the USSR. Instead, Nick Bisley argues, they contributed crucially to its collapse. Using historical-sociological theory, The End of the Cold War and the Causes of Soviet Collapse shows that international confrontation had been an important element of Soviet rule and that the retreat from this confrontational posture weakened institutional-functional aspects of the state. This played a vital role in making the USSR vulnerable to the forces of economic crisis, elite fragmentation and nationalism which ultimately caused its collapse.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230000541
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
Soviet efforts to end the Cold War were intended to help revitalize the USSR. Instead, Nick Bisley argues, they contributed crucially to its collapse. Using historical-sociological theory, The End of the Cold War and the Causes of Soviet Collapse shows that international confrontation had been an important element of Soviet rule and that the retreat from this confrontational posture weakened institutional-functional aspects of the state. This played a vital role in making the USSR vulnerable to the forces of economic crisis, elite fragmentation and nationalism which ultimately caused its collapse.
Enduring the Great War
Author: Alexander Watson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139867253
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 377
Book Description
This book is an innovative comparative history of how German and British soldiers endured the horror of the First World War. Unlike existing literature, which emphasises the strength of societies or military institutions, this study argues that at the heart of armies' robustness lay natural human resilience. Drawing widely on contemporary letters and diaries of British and German soldiers, psychiatric reports and official documentation, and interpreting these sources with modern psychological research, this unique account provides fresh insights into the soldiers' fears, motivations and coping mechanisms. It explains why the British outlasted their opponents by examining and comparing the motives for fighting, the effectiveness with which armies and societies supported men and the combatants' morale throughout the conflict on both sides. Finally it challenges the consensus on the war's end, arguing that not a 'covert strike' but rather an 'ordered surrender' led by junior officers brought about Germany's defeat in 1918.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139867253
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 377
Book Description
This book is an innovative comparative history of how German and British soldiers endured the horror of the First World War. Unlike existing literature, which emphasises the strength of societies or military institutions, this study argues that at the heart of armies' robustness lay natural human resilience. Drawing widely on contemporary letters and diaries of British and German soldiers, psychiatric reports and official documentation, and interpreting these sources with modern psychological research, this unique account provides fresh insights into the soldiers' fears, motivations and coping mechanisms. It explains why the British outlasted their opponents by examining and comparing the motives for fighting, the effectiveness with which armies and societies supported men and the combatants' morale throughout the conflict on both sides. Finally it challenges the consensus on the war's end, arguing that not a 'covert strike' but rather an 'ordered surrender' led by junior officers brought about Germany's defeat in 1918.
Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?: Understanding Historical Change
Author: Robert Strayer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315503964
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
Taking the Soviet collapse - the most cataclysmic event of the recent past - as a case study, this text engages students in the exercise of historical analysis, interpretation and explanation. In exploring the question posed by the title, the author introduces and applies such organizing concepts as great power conflict, imperial decline, revolution, ethnic conflict, colonialism, economic development, totalitarian ideology, and transition to democracy in a most accessible way. Questions and controversies, and extracts from documentary and literary sources, anchor the text at key points. This book is intended for use in history and political science courses on the Soviet Union or more generally on the 20th century.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315503964
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
Taking the Soviet collapse - the most cataclysmic event of the recent past - as a case study, this text engages students in the exercise of historical analysis, interpretation and explanation. In exploring the question posed by the title, the author introduces and applies such organizing concepts as great power conflict, imperial decline, revolution, ethnic conflict, colonialism, economic development, totalitarian ideology, and transition to democracy in a most accessible way. Questions and controversies, and extracts from documentary and literary sources, anchor the text at key points. This book is intended for use in history and political science courses on the Soviet Union or more generally on the 20th century.
The Great Trade Collapse: Causes, Consequences and Prospects
Author: Richard E. Baldwin
Publisher: CEPR
ISBN: 1907142061
Category : Commercial policy
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Book Description
Publisher: CEPR
ISBN: 1907142061
Category : Commercial policy
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Book Description
Conflict and Fragility Preventing Violence, War and State Collapse The Future of Conflict Early Warning and Response
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264059814
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 137
Book Description
Based on literature review and inputs from surveyed agencies, this book assesses the value and role of early warning for the prevention of violent conflict and identifies the most effective systems.
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264059814
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 137
Book Description
Based on literature review and inputs from surveyed agencies, this book assesses the value and role of early warning for the prevention of violent conflict and identifies the most effective systems.
State Collapse and Reconstruction in the Periphery
Author: Jens Stilhoff Sörensen
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781845455606
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 332
Book Description
"In the 1990s, Yugoslavia, which had once been a role model for development, became a symbol for state collapse, external intervention and post-war reconstruction. Today the region has two international protectorates, contested states and borders, severe ethnic polarisation and minority concerns. In this first in-depth critical analysis of international administration, aid and reconstruction policies in Kosovo, Jens Stilhoff Sorensen argues that the region must be analysed as a whole, and that the process of state collapse and recent changes in aid policy must be interpreted in connection to the wider transformation of the global political economy and world order. He examines the shifting inter- and intracommunity relations, the emergence of a 'political economy' of conflict, and of informal clientelist arrangements in Serbia and Kosovo and provides a framework for interpreting the collapse of the Yugoslav state, the emergence of ethnic conflict and shadow economies, and the character of western aid and intervention. Western governments and agencies have built policies on conceptions and assumptions for which there is no genuine historical or contemporary economic, social or political basis in the region. As the author persuasively argues, this discrepancy has exacerbated and cemented problems in the region and provided further complications that are likely to remain for years to come." -- Back cover.
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781845455606
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 332
Book Description
"In the 1990s, Yugoslavia, which had once been a role model for development, became a symbol for state collapse, external intervention and post-war reconstruction. Today the region has two international protectorates, contested states and borders, severe ethnic polarisation and minority concerns. In this first in-depth critical analysis of international administration, aid and reconstruction policies in Kosovo, Jens Stilhoff Sorensen argues that the region must be analysed as a whole, and that the process of state collapse and recent changes in aid policy must be interpreted in connection to the wider transformation of the global political economy and world order. He examines the shifting inter- and intracommunity relations, the emergence of a 'political economy' of conflict, and of informal clientelist arrangements in Serbia and Kosovo and provides a framework for interpreting the collapse of the Yugoslav state, the emergence of ethnic conflict and shadow economies, and the character of western aid and intervention. Western governments and agencies have built policies on conceptions and assumptions for which there is no genuine historical or contemporary economic, social or political basis in the region. As the author persuasively argues, this discrepancy has exacerbated and cemented problems in the region and provided further complications that are likely to remain for years to come." -- Back cover.