Thinking Through Transition ― Liberal Democracy, Authoritarian Pasts, and Intellectual History in East Central Europe After 1989

Examining events and trends in East Central Europe after the demise of socialist regimes, political scientists, sociologists, and historians cover liberalism: dissident illusions and disillusions; whether conservatism is a counter-revolution; populism: endemic pasts and global effects; the left between communist legacy and neoliberal challenge; and politics of history: nations, war, revolutions. Among the topics are totalitarianism and the limits of Polish dissident political thought: late socialism and after, Czech post-dissident neoconservatives in post-communist transformation, the political lives of dead populists in post-socialist Slovakia, feminist criticism of the new democracies in Serbia and Croatia during the first half of the 1990s, and concepts of history and the nation in Hungarian politics 1989-2010. Annotation c2016 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)