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Central And Eastern Europe: The Opening Curtain

Edited by William E. Griffith
Reviewed by By John C. Campbell
Fall 1989
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Edited by William E. Griffith
Westview Press
1989
458 pp.
$35.00

Professor Griffith has assembled a battery of experts to produce an immensely informative and valuable book. It stands alongside, and in some respects overlaps, the earlier volume by J. F. Brown (Eastern Europe and Communist Rule, noted in Foreign Affairs, Summer 1988). It combines studies of individual countries and broader international topics. A sampling of the names of authors-Seweryn Bialer, J. F. Brown, Paul Marer, Sarah Terry, Charles Gati, Gordon Skilling-gives an idea of the quality of the work, as also of the lines of argument, since they have all already written extensively in the field. Whatever may happen in the region, anticipated or not, the necessary background is here in this one volume.

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