The barbaric, terrorist siege in the summer of 2004 that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of innocent children in Beslan did not begin either there or in the take-over of a Moscow theatre in 2002. As Andrew Meier explains in this utterly compelling account, the most recent Chechen war actually broke out on New Year's Eve in 1994 when Boris Yeltsin sent hundreds of tanks to the center of the city of Grozny in an effort to quell popular demands for independence from Russia. Six years later, Meier, braving great personal danger, traveled to the scene of one of the largest civilian massacres carried out by Russian troops, reporting on the carnage in which over 60 Chechen civiliansincluding a pregnant woman and many elderlywere brutally slaughtered in one of the war's most horrific "mop-up" operations. Days after a Chechen woman became the conflict's first female suicide bomber, Meier visited this war-torn province, encountering, among others, kidnappers, Wahhabi Islamists aligned with the Taliban, and a stream of Russian mothers arriving at the morgue to identify their fallen soldier sons. Chechnya is Meier's stunning report from a region where the death toll has already exceeded 100,000 people, and a book that attempts to comprehend what compels men to shoot children in the back.

Based on new archival evidence, examines Soviet Empire building in Hungary and the American response to it.

François Mitterrand was a controversial politician with a contested strategy and a flawed character. In spite of being one of France's most detested political figures, he was also undoubtedly one of twentieth century Europe's most substantial, durable and statesmanlike leaders. From his much-disputed passages at Vichy during WWII through the major policies of his presidency, Mitterrand's career is a lens through which one can view the anxieties, fears, and instabilities, as well as achievements and successes of contemporary French political history. In this first major political biography since his death, Ronald Tiersky looks at the contradiction that was Mitterrand and the legacy he left to France and the world. This promises to be the standard book on this great world leader for years to come.

At the close of World War II, the Soviet Union controlled all of eastern Germany except the Allied sectors of Berlin. In June 1948, Soviet authorities halted all rail traffic between the city and the outside world, resulting in a massive supply airlift by American and British air forces. By focusing on the experiences of airmen, politicians and ordinary Berliners, the author tells the story of this aviation and logistical accomplishment that has had lasting geopolitical significance.

A number of specialists in German studies have joined forces in this book to paint a comprehensive picture of Germany since unification. Starting from the 1989 revolution, the book reviews the fall of East Germany, including a chapter on how the event was experienced by observers and participants.

"Indispensable for anyone who wants to seriously come to grips with the experience of Eastern Europe."—Cleveland Plain Dealer.

In this book specialists address the main problems facing Gorbachev and are cautiously optimistic about his chances of modernising the USSR.

In this account of the Algerian War's effect on French political structures and notions of national identity, Todd Shepard asserts that the separation of Algeria from France was truly a revolutionary event with lasting consequences for French social and political life.

In Remembering Stalin's Victims, Kathleen E. Smith examines how government reformers' repudiation of Stalin's repressions both in the 1950s and in the 1980s created new political crises. Drawing on interviews, she tells the stories of citizens and officials in conflict over the past. She also addresses the underlying question how societies emerging from repressive regimes reconcile themselves to their memories. Soviet leaders twice attempted to liberalize Communist rule and both times their initiatives hinged on criticism of Stalin. During the years of the Khrushchev "thaw" and again during Gorbachev's glasnost, antistalinism proved a unique catalyst for democratic mobilization. The battle over the Soviet past, Smith suggests, not only illuminates the dynamic between elite and mass political actors during liberalization but also reveals the scars that totalitarian rule has left on Russian society and the long-term obstacles to reform it has created.

If Europe, Russia, and international bodies such as the U.N. and NATO end up playing a more prominent role in Iraq's immediate future, all parties, including the United States, would do well to revisit the lessons learned during the U.S.-led war in Kosovo in 1999. As a confrontation over Kosovo's final push for independence looms, this book offers seminal insight into the negotiations that took place between the United States and Russia in an effort to set the terms for ending the conflict. This study in brinksmanship and deception is an essential background for anyone trying to understand Russia's uneasy relations with the West. America's relationship with Russia has become increasingly important as Washington has engaged Moscow as a critical, but often prickly, ally in the war on terror. From smoky late-night sessions at dachas outside of Moscow to meetings in the White House Situation Room, Norris captures the feel of a war that repeatedly threatened to spin out of control. He offers a vivid portrait of some of the larger-than-life characters involved in the conflict, including U.S. president Bill Clinton, General Wesley Clark, Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, and Russian president Boris Yeltsin. New information includes backstage efforts to open a direct negotiating channel between Milosevic and Washington at the height of the conflict. The book reaches a dramatic crescendo against the backdrop of the war's final days, when Russia unleashed a secret plan to push its forces into Kosovo, ahead of NATO peacekeepers.

Rose Brady, former Moscow bureau chief for Business Week magazine, here provides a compelling firsthand account of Russia's transition from a socialist state to a market economy. Taking us into the factories, stores, banks, markets, homes, schools, and corridors of power in Russia, she explains how the country's own brand of capitalism has evolved.

Among the surprising events in Eastern Europe in 1989, none astonished the world more than the nonviolent overthrow of the East German Communist regime. This book examines the collapse of East Germany as it unfolded in one city, Leipzig. Analyzing the leading role of the GDR's second largest city, Bartee combines chronological and descriptive narration of events with an in-depth critique of leading actors and groups. Prominent among these are the Protestant churches and the array of opposition groups concerned for peace, freedom, human rights, justice, and the environment.

Bartee focuses in particular on the famous peace prayer services in St. Nicholas Church and the protest activities of the groups as they expanded into the mass demonstrations of late 1989. Using surveys and interviews with participants, as well as Leipzig archives, this study examines the motivations and methods of the demonstrators. Bartee concludes that, while the prayer services provided hope, inspiration, and information, the strong desire for a free, open society served as the group's chief motivation.

The Prague Spring was one of the most decisive moments in twentieth century European history. The efforts by Czechoslovak leaders in 1968 to create socialism with a human face, had great repercussions not only in that country, but throughout the Soviet bloc. This book presents a systematic analysis of the Romanian foreign policy in 1968, Romania's reaction towards the Prague Spring, its position at various international conferences of the communist and workers' parties, and the relation between Romania and COMECON. The book discusses in great detail the attitudes of the Romanian and Soviet governments during the political and diplomatic crisis in 1968 and analyzes the position assumed by Romania in August 1968.

The diaries of the former senior political representative of the United States to Romania from 1944 to 1947, Burton Y. Berry, provide a first-hand account of the communist takeover of Romania, as seen through the eyes of an American diplomat. Born on 31 August 1901 in Fowler, Indiana, Burton Y. Berry completed his studies at Indiana University before joining the United States Foreign Service. From 1928 to 1944 he served in various posts at American diplomatic missions in Turkey, Greece, Iran, and Egypt. In 1944 he was appointed as senior political representative for the United States in Romania, with the personal rank of Minister. As General Cortlandt Van R. Schuyler, the chief of the U.S. military representation on the Allied Control Commission in Romania described it, Berry's primary task was to establish and maintain informed channels with the king and the Romanian government. From this position, Berry witnessed first-hand the events that led to the installation of a communist regim

Throughout the Cold War, people worldwide feared that the U.S. and Soviet governments could not prevent a nuclear showdown. Citizens from both Eastbloc and Western countries, among them prominent scientists and physicians, formed networks to promote ideas and policies that would lessen this danger. Two of their organizations -- the Pugwash Movement and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War -- won Nobel peace prizes. Still, many observers believe that their influence was negligible and that the Reagan administration deserves sole credit for ending the Cold War. 'The first book to explore the impact these activists had on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain, Unarmed Forces demonstrates the importance of their efforts on behalf of arms control and disarmament.

Russian rethinking of the past has immense political significance.The author of the acclaimed Soviet History in the Gorbachev Revolution now examines the impact of the collapse of Communism and of the subsequent disillusionment with capitalism on Soviet history. The uses of history after the 1991 coup and in the 1995 and 1996 elections are considered in detail. Part two evaluates the unfinished revolution which has partly opened the archives, while part three offers reflections on the future of the Soviet past.

The Children of Atlantis is a collection of statements by a hundred young people who have fled various parts of the former Yugoslavia in the face of war and destruction, nationalism, hatred and ethnic cleansing, the pressure to take sides, and the draft. As refugees, they are seeking to continue or complete their education at universities around the world, all the while confronting the task of making something of their lives amid the catastrophe that has overwhelmed them, their families, and their homeland. Gathered here are extracts from essays written by the students describing the circumstances that drove them to leave their homes, and the different ways (both optimistic and bleak) they envision their futures. It offers a snapshot of virtually a whole generation of young people on the threshold of their working lives, uprooted from the world they grew up in. Their voices are varied, expressing pain, anger, uncertainty, hope, and the positive energy of youth. What they have in common is a sense of disbelief and bewilderment at the forces unleashed in what was their country.
In a way this is a war-report, though not prepared by foreign war-reporters or covered from the frontlines. Rather, it is a diverse chronicle revealing the unseen psychological aspects of war, written by the victims from the depths of their souls.

In this book, scholars and practitioners from both sides of the divide, Czech and Slovak, as well as experts from the United States and France, seek to explain why, after the collapse of the communist regime, Czechoslovakia split into two separate states. In trying to interpret the causes and processes of a modern state's peaceful disintegration, the authors, though addressing the subject from their own viewpoints, have used an analytical, non-evaluative approach.
The study also seeks to fulfil other objectives--both theoretical and practical. On the one hand, the Czechoslovak experience is used to explore the concepts and instruments of European integration as a whole, and the theory of contemporary nationalisms; on the other, it could well have some practical policy implications for those countries facing similar problems.

How has it happened that the United States and the Soviet Union have managed to get through more than four decades of Cold War confrontation without going to war with one another? Historian John Lewis Gaddis suggests answers to this and other vital questions about postwar diplomacy in his new book, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War.
Gaddis uses recently-declassified American and British documents to explore several key issues in Cold War history that remain unresolved: Precisely what was it about the Soviet Union's behavior after World War II that American leaders found so threatening? Did the United States really want a sphere of influence in postwar Europe? What led the Truman administration first to endorse, but then immediately to back away from, a strategy designed to avoid American military involvement on the mainland of Asia? Why did the United States not use nuclear weapons during the decade in which it had an effective monopoly over them? Did American leaders really believe in the existence of an international communist "monolith"? How did Russians and Americans fall into the habit of not shooting down each other's reconnaisance satellites?
Relating these questions to the current status of Soviet-American relations, Gaddis makes a strong case for the relative stability of the postwar international system, a stability whose components include--and go well beyond --nuclear deterrence. The result is a provocative exercise in contemporary history, certain to generate interest, discussion, and, in the end, important new insights on both past and present aspects of the age in which we live.

Now in its second edition, this text charts the growth of fascism through the decades following the end of World War II, to its present day resurgence in the new Europe. It paints a sombre picture of a Europe threatened by racist politics and terrorism, and struggling to come to terms with the problems of living in a multiracial society. Concentrating on the themes of racism, the rewriting of history, the rise of the New Right, terrorism and secret service corruption, it looks in detail at the Le Pen phenomenon in France, recent events in Germany and Bosnia and extreme Right terrorism in Italy.