History did not come to an end with the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. This book tells the story of what followed during the 1990s. Political and national conflict, social and cultural change and the economic challenge of the transition to the market are all given their due weight. The comparative approach is combined with a detailed treatment of individual countries in alternating chapters. The distinction is made here between East Central Europe, where the author's conclusions are largely optimistic, and the Balkans, where uncertainty still prevails.
Ben Fowkes was for twenty-five years Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of North London. He has carried out archival research in Vienna, Munich, Bonn, Prague and Moscow. He is the author of several works on communist and post-communist history and politics, including The Rise and Fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, The Disintegration of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe from Stalinism to Stagnation and The Post-Communist Era.