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Deals with the period of takeover and of ‘high Stalinism’ in Eastern Europe (1945–1955). These years are considered to be fundamentally characterized by institutional and ideological transfers based upon the premise of radical transformism and of cultural revolution. Both a balance-sheet and a politico-historical synthesis that reflects the archival and thematic novelties which came about in the field of communism studies after 1989. Contains contributions analyzing various aspects related these topics for each country of the former Soviet bloc (with the exception of Albania). The essays are based on new archival research, some are reassessments of the author’s previous research and others are critical appraisals of the specific literature published on issues related to the main topic. A path-breaking comparative framework for interpreting the relationship between late Stalinism and the communist takeovers in former Eastern Europe. A bonus for the volume is that it also provides detailed, sectorial analyses for the Romanian case, something that the field paritcularly lacks.
The material effects of World War II, in combination with Eastern Europe's disappointingly undemocratic interwar history, placed radical social change on the postwar agenda across the region and shaped the debates that took place in immediate postwar Czech society. These debates adopted both a cultural form, in struggles over the meaning of the recent past and the nation's position on the East-West continuum, and a directly political form, in battles over the meaning of socialism. The Struggle for the Soul of the Nation examines the most important and politically resonant fields of historical and cultural debate in Czech society immediately after World War II. Bradley Abrams finds that commu...
"In 2014, Russia launched a "Hybrid War" against Ukraine that, according to some, ushered in a revolution in conflict. The term is notoriously vague, referring to all measures short of war states use to attain strategic aims. States, of course, have long used measures in the "gray zone" between war and peace. Yet they did not always have the Internet."--
Labor regimes under communism in East-Central Europe were complex, shifting, and ambiguous. This collection of sixteen essays offers new conceptual and empirical ways to understand their history from the end of World War II to 1989, and to think about how their experiences relate to debates about labor history, both European and global. The authors reconsider the history of state socialism by re-examining the policies and problems of communist regimes and recovering the voices of the workers who built them. The contributors look at work and workers in Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. They explore the often contentiou...
In response to mounting debt crises and macroeconomic instability in the 1980s, many countries in the developing world adopted neoliberal policies promoting the unfettered play of market forces and deregulation of the economy and attempted large-scale structural adjustment, including the privatization of public-sector industries. How much influence did various societal groups have on this transition to a market economy, and what explains the variances in interest-group influence across countries? In this book, Agnieszka Paczyńska explores these questions by studying the role of organized labor in the transition process in four countries in different regions—the Czech Republic and Poland i...
The USSR and Latin America (1989) is an authoritative analysis of the Soviet Union’s strategy and policy towards the region. The contributors cover a variety of topics, including Latin America’s place in Soviet strategy for the developing world, US perceptions of Soviet strategy in the region, Soviet–Cuban relations, and relations between Latin American communist parties and the USSR.
A sweeping history of a twentieth-century Prague torn between fascism, communism, and democracy—with lessons for a world again threatened by dictatorship Postcards from Absurdistan is a cultural history of Prague from 1938, when the Nazis destroyed Czechoslovakia’s artistically vibrant liberal democracy, to 1989, when the country’s socialist regime collapsed after more than four decades of communist party rule. Derek Sayer shows that Prague’s twentieth century, far from being a story of inexorable progress toward some “end of history,” whether fascist, communist, or democratic, was a tragicomedy of recurring nightmares played out in a land Czech dissidents dubbed Absurdistan. Sit...
This book is the only comprehensive treatment in any language of a rather “exotic” Balkan Jewish community. It places the Jewish community of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the context of the Jewish world, but also of the world within which it existed for around five hundred years under various empires and regimes. The Bosnian Jews might have remained a mostly unknown community to the rest of the world had it not played a unique role within the Bosnian Wars of the early 1990s, providing humanitarian aid to its neighbor Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. Watch Francine Friedman's presentation on The Jews of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Security studies, also known as international security studies, is an academic subfield within the wider discipline of international relations that examines organized violence, military conflict, and national security. Meant to serve as an introduction to the field of security studies, Contextualizing Security is a collection of original essays, primary source lectures, and previously published material in the overlapping fields of security studies, political science, sociology, journalism, and philosophy. It offers both graduate and undergraduate students a grasp on both foundational issues and more contemporary debates in security studies. Nineteen chapters cover security studies in the co...
Through the lens of an economist’s notion of public goods, David J. O’Brien analyzes the dual problems of declining communities and polarizing conflicts between metropolitan and rural communities. The author describes in detail how seemingly intractable community-level problems and inter-community conflicts have been substantially reduced by framing them in terms of the self-interest of a larger polity. O’Brien’s extensive community-level research experience in urban and rural communities that covers multiple historical periods, will appeal to inter-disciplinary social scientists, development specialists and persons looking for a hopeful, practical approach to solving the challenges of globalization.