Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The first work that covers the post-Communist development of historical studies in six Eastern European countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. A uniquely critical and qualitative analysis from a comparative and critical perspective, written by scholars from the region itself. Each individual chapter has numerous and detailed notes and references. It focuses on the first post-Communist decade, 1989-1999, but also offers a longer-term perspective that includes the immediate ?prehistory? of that momentous decade as well as its ?posthistoire?. The authors capture the spirit of 1989, the paradoxical beginning of Eastern European post-Communism, ushered in by ?anti-Utopian? revolutions and finding its course towards a bureaucratic, imitative, challenging, and anachronistic restoration of a capitalism that had changed almost beyond recognition when it mutated into the negative double of Communism.