Eastern Europe since 1945. Second edition

Book abstract:

This second edition of this title is substantially revised and expanded to include the momentous changes that have taken place since the first edition was published in 1993. It is essentially the history of a socialist experiment which failed. The book does not attempt to present a comprehensive history of each of the countries making up Eastern Europe. Instead, it shifts focus from country to country as the issues of socialist construction and collapse evolve. The story starts in 1945 with the euphoria of liberation and the prospects offered by socialists and communists for an end to the old order. Then, as the cold war grew in intensity, Stalin imposed his own version of social and economic development on every country in Eastern Europe, except Yugoslavia, through a policy of trials, terror and centralised planning. With Stalin's death in 1953 and denunciation in 1956, the story becomes that of the attempts first to reform communism, then to overthrow it and then finally to struggle free of its ghosts. The main themes addressed include the road to power, diverse paths to socialism, the impossibility of democratised communism, the attempt at economic reform, bureaucratic resistance and economic and social collapse.

Geoffrey Swain is Professor of European History at the University of the West of England. Nigel Swain is Lecturer in History and Deputy Director of the Centre for Central and East European Studies at the University of Liverpool. This is the first volume in the series, The Making of the Modern World.

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