1989: Democratic Revolutions at the Cold War's End PDF Download

Author: Padraic Kenney
Publisher: Bedford
ISBN: 9780312487669
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A series of democratic transformations in the 1980s ended the cold war and ushered in the present era. This volume by Padraic Kenney uses six case studies from this period — Poland, the Philippines, Chile, South Africa, Ukraine, and China — to explore common characteristics of global political change while highlighting the differing strategies and perspectives of the people who sought to free themselves from dictatorship. A general introduction to the volume examines key trends in the decades leading up to the changes, tracing the paths that dictatorships and opposition movements took in their fateful confrontations. The first chapter with documents surveys the central ideas of this age of democratic, nonviolent revolution, and sets a framework for considering the case studies in the chapters that follow.

Author: Robert W. Strayer
Publisher: Bedford/st Martins
ISBN: 9781457633119
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Gregory F. Domber
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469618516
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
As the most populous country in Eastern Europe as well as the birthplace of the largest anticommunist dissident movement, Poland is crucial in understanding the end of the Cold War. During the 1980s, both the United States and the Soviet Union vied for influence over Poland's politically tumultuous steps toward democratic revolution. In this groundbreaking history, Gregory F. Domber examines American policy toward Poland and its promotion of moderate voices within the opposition, while simultaneously addressing the Soviet and European influences on Poland's revolution in 1989. With a cast including Reagan, Gorbachev, and Pope John Paul II, Domber charts American support of anticommunist opposition groups--particularly Solidarity, the underground movement led by future president Lech Wa&322;&281;sa--and highlights the transnational network of Polish emigres and trade unionists that kept the opposition alive. Utilizing archival research and interviews with Polish and American government officials and opposition leaders, Domber argues that the United States empowered a specific segment of the Polish opposition and illustrates how Soviet leaders unwittingly fostered radical, pro-democratic change through their policies. The result is fresh insight into the global impact of the Polish pro-democracy movement.

Author: Kevin McDermott
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526103478
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This important book reassesses a defining historical, political and ideological moment in contemporary history: the 1989 revolutions in central and eastern Europe. Adopting a multi-disciplinary approach, the authors reconsider such crucial themes as the broader historical significance of the 1989 events, the complex interaction between external and internal factors in the origins and outcomes of the revolutions, the impact of the ‘Gorbachev phenomenon’, the West and the end of the Cold War, the political and socio-economic determinants of the revolutionary processes in Poland, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, and the competing academic, cultural and ideological perceptions of the year 1989 as communism gave way to post-communist pluralism in the 1990s and beyond. Concluding that the contentious term ‘revolution’ is indeed apt for the momentous developments in eastern Europe in 1989, this book will be essential reading for undergraduates, postgraduates and specialists alike.

Author: Vladimir Tismaneanu
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 6155053650
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 604

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Book Description
A fresh interpretation of the contexts, meanings, and consequences of the revolutions of 1989, coupled with state of the art reassessment of the significance and consequences of the events associated with the demise of communist regimes. The book provides an analysis that takes into account the complexities of the Soviet bloc, the events? impact upon Europe, and their re-interpretation within a larger global context. Departs from static ways of analysis (events and their significance) bringing forth approaches that deal with both pre-1989 developments and the 1989 context itself, while extensively discussing the ways of resituating 1989 in the larger context of the 20th century and of its lessons for the 21st. Emphasizes the possibility for re-thinking and re-visiting the filters and means that scholars use to interpret such turning point. The editors perceive the present project as a challenge to existing readings on the complex set of issues and topics presupposed by a re-evaluation of 1989 as a symbol of the change and transition from authoritarianism to democracy.

Author: Robert J. McMahon
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198859546
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Vividly written and based on up-to-date scholarship, this title provides an interpretive overview of the international history of the Cold War.

Author: Kiron K. Skinner
Publisher: Hoover Press
ISBN: 0817946314
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
Twenty years ago, as the United States and the Soviet Union were sliding into yet another round of dangerous confrontation, no one could have imagined that only a decade later the cold war would be over and that Russia and the West would embark on an unprecedented course of economic, political, and military cooperation. How did it happen? The essays in this collection offer illuminating insights into the key players--Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and others--and the monumental events that led to the collapse of communism. The expert contributors examine the end of dtente and the beginning of the new phase of the cold war in the early 1980s, when U.S.-Soviet relations seemed to hit a new low. They detail Reagan's radical new strategies aimed at changing Soviet behavior. And they analyze the essence and origins of Mikhail Gorbachev's "new political thinking"--his realization that the cold war was not in Russia's interest and could not end unless his country changed itself-and its critical role in the ultimate transformation of the Soviet Union. In addition the authors describe the peaceful democratic revolutions in Poland and Hungary, the events that brought about the reunification of Germany, the role of events in Third World countries, the critical contributions of Yeltsin, and more.

Author: David S Mason
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000310035
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
The year 1989 marked a turning point in world history, a watershed year of unprecedented drama and political significance. No matter how one looks at those events–as the fall of communism, the democratization of Eastern Europe, or the end of the cold war–it is important to understand how the world travelled the distance of time, space, and ideology to arrive at the Berlin Wall and tear it down. David Mason provides that understanding in a concise synthesis of history, politics, economics, sociology, literature, philosophy, and popular, as well as traditional, culture. He shows how all these elements combined to yield the year that effectively closed the twentieth century–and promised to launch the new century on a hopeful note. Starting with Poland's elections in June 1989, the countries of then-communist Eastern Europe one by one revolutionized their governments and their polities; Hungary opened its borders to the West, East Germany rushed through, Czechoslovakia elected Vaclav Havel president, Bulgaria changed both party and leadership, and Romania executed Ceausescu. Although Gorbachev enabled many of these changes, he did not cause them. The illumination of the complex symbiosis between dynamics in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union is one of the greatest contributions this book makes. With undercurrents emphasizing the power of ideas, the spirit of youth, and the multifaceted force of culture and ethnicity, Mason takes the reader far beyond the events of change and into their impetus and outcomes. He applies theories of social movements, democratization, and economic transition with an even hand, showing the interaction of their effects not only regionally but worldwide. The concluding chapter puts the revolutions in Eastern Europe into international perspective and highlights their impact on East-West relations, security alliances, and economic integration. Mason discusses the European Community, the United States and the Soviet Union, and the Third World in relation to the new East-Central European configuration. Using delightful and provocative cartoons from Eastern European and Soviet presses, interesting photos, valuable tables of data, and illuminating figures, Mason emphasizes important points about the role of nationalism, ethnicity, public opinion, and harsh economic reality in the revolutionary process.

Author: Christopher Hobson
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748692827
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Explores democracy's remarkable rise from obscurity to centre stage in contemporary international relations, from the rogue democratic state of 18th Century France to Western pressures for countries throughout the world to democratise.

Author: Mark Mackinnon
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307369927
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
An intrepid investigation into the pro-democracy movements that have reshaped the Eastern bloc since 2000, reopening the Kremlin’s wounds from the Cold War. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union collapsed two years later, liberal democracy was supposed to fill the void left by Soviet communism. Poland and Czechoslovakia made the best of reforms, but the citizens of the “Evil Empire” itself saw little of the promised freedom, and more of the same old despots and corruption. Recently, a second wave of reforms–Serbia in 2000, Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004, as well as Kyrgyzstan’s regime change in 2005 – have proven almost as monumental as those in Berlin and Moscow. The people of the Eastern bloc, aided in no small part by Western money and advice, are again rising up and demanding an end to autocracy. And once more, the Kremlin is battling the White House every step of the way. Mark MacKinnon spent these years working in Moscow, and his view of the story and access to those involved remains unparalleled. With The New Cold War, he reveals the links between these democratic revolutions – and the idealistic American billionaire behind them–in a major investigation into the forces that are quietly reshaping the post- Soviet world.