Eastern Europe and Former Soviet Republics
Between 1968 and 1989 the Czechoslovak regime went about cowing society in the name of "normalization." Accounts that focus on the spread of dissidence would lead one to believe that this did not work. But Bren argues that it was largely successful.
Bullough vividly conveys what remains of the Cricasians' historical memory and cultural legacy, weaving their story into a detailed history of what actually happened.
The author's focus is not on the Russian mind writ large or even the mind of the ruling elite but rather on that of the generations of academic Orientalists from the eighteenth century on.
Zhuk, who grew up in Ukraine as part of the Beatles generation, details his cohort's intricate knowledge of the Western rock scene, smuggled Western movies, and, among schoolchildren, Western adventure classics.
Among the various puzzles raised by the way the once socialist countries of eastern Europe transitioned to another model, one of the more interesting concerns retribution against those from the upper ranks of the ancien régime. Why did the retribution not come quickly and harshly? Nalepa offers a simple but far from obvious explanation.
Instead of ethnic violence, which is the focus of much of the academic literature on eastern Europe, McMahon shifts attention to what she claims has been far more prevalent: cases of ethnic cooperation.
