Return to Diversity A Political History of East Central Europe Since World War II

by Rothschild, Joseph; Wingfield, Nancy M.

• ISBN13: 9780195334753
• ISBN10: 0195334752
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-11-30
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Highly acclaimed and thoroughly updated, Return to Diversity, Fourth Edition, provides a comprehensive political history of East Central Europe from World War II to the present. An engaging and straightforward political narrative, the book is organized chronologically in a country-by-country format that students can easily navigate. Each section summarizes and examines the most important themes in Eastern Europe during the rise and fall of Communism. The text features balanced discussions of relevant political events, along with a detailed analysis of the causes and consequences of Communism from the perspective of post-Communist regimes. Nancy M. Wingfield has revised the fourth edition to incorporate social and economic history into the text's strong discussions of political history. She also provides expanded coverage of the resurgence of nationalism in the 1980s, the role of dissident movements in the shift to democracy, and the problems of Communism. To make the region's history even more relevant to students, Return to Diversity now concludes with a compelling look at the contemporary reintegration of the "new" and "old" Europes. Unsurpassed in scope, depth of analysis, and objectivity, Return to Diversity continues to be an invaluable resource for both professors and students of this region's vivid political history.

Author Biography

The late Joseph Rothschild served as Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science and Associate of the Institute on East Central Europe at Columbia University. His books include Ethnopolitics: A Conceptual Framework (1981), East Central Europe Between the Two World Wars (1974), Pilsudski's Coup d'Etat (1966), and The Communist Party of Bulgaria (1959.
Nancy M. Wingfield is Professor of History at Northern Illinois University. She is author of Flag Wars and Stone Saints: How the Bohemian Lands Became Czech (forthcoming in 2007); editor of Creating the Other: Ethnic Conflict and Nationalism in Habsburg Central Europe (2003); and coeditor, with Maria Bucur, of Gender and War in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe (2006) and Staging the Past: The Politics of Commemoration in Habsburg Central Europe, 1848 to the Present (2001).

Table of Contents

Preface to the Fourth Edition	p. viii
Preface to the Third Edition	p. ix
Preface to the Second Edition	p. x
Preface to the First Edition	p. xi
The Interwar Background	p. 1
World War II	p. 19
The Communists Come to Power	p. 61
The Dialectics of Stalinism and Titoism	p. 101
The Revenge of the Repressed: East Central Europe Reasserts Itself	p. 118
A Precarious Stalemate	p. 153
The Various Endgames	p. 181
The Return to Europe	p. 211
Notes	p. 245
Suggested Readings	p. 257
Index	p. 264
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.