Between Past and Future: The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Aftermath by Sorin Antohi;Vladimir TismaneanuReview by: Richard SakwaSlavic Review, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Spring, 2001), pp. 153-154Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2697650 .

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Book Reviews 153

which the countries of central and eastern Europe were changing for the better. Indeed, on issues such as the emancipation of women, welfare rights, constitutional reform, so- cialism and strikes, militarism and anti-Semitism, Europe as a whole may have faced com- mon problems. Indeed, in terms of artistic vitality, eastern Europe may in some respects have been ahead of the west. Surely, therefore, more may have been made of World War I as a turning point in the history of Europe as a whole.

Nonetheless, this book can be recommended to specialists and nonspecialist readers alike as a fluently written interpretation of the history of central and eastern Europe dur- ing its most turbulent decades. It will excite and challenge them in turn, and they will find themselves consulting it again and again, not merely for the wealth of information it con- tains but for the intellectual exhilaration generated when a first-rate historian uses such information to construct his unique interpretation of the past. Everyone interested in Eu- ropean history should acquire a copy.

ALAN SKED London School of Economics and Political Science

Betzween Past and Future: The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Aftermath. Ed. Sorin Antohi and Vladimir Tismaneanu. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2000. xii, 414 pp. Notes. Index. Tables. $28.95, paper.

There are occasionally books that transcend their time. This is the case, paradoxically, with the book in hand. This volume would appear to be by self-definition time-bound, cele- brating and analyzing the significance of the fall of the communist regimes in 1989, yet it far transcends the narrow limitations of its formal design. The chapters are revised ver- sions of papers presented at a conference held in Budapest in March 1999 that not only discussed the retrospective significance of the revolutions of 1989 but also examined the unfolding legacies of these events.

The book attempts to reevaluate the experience of the first postcommunist decade in central and eastern Europe, although Russia and the post-Soviet world do not figure very largely, and to examine the fate of the new democracies in the region. The list of contrib- utors is impressive and, with not a single dull chapter out of the twenty-one, in such a short review it will be possible to do no more than indicate some of the richness of the collec- tion. Divided into five parts, the work begins with "Meanings of 1989: Present Significance of the Past," with chapters by Agnes Heller, Jacques Rupnik, Karol Soltan, Jeffrey C. Isaac, and Sorin Antohi. Isaac's chapter is a deeply moving and provocative account of the Bos- nian tragedy in the 1990s and its significance. He notes the "recalcitrance towards demo- cratic values" (59) in much of the world, and that Bosnia can be taken as emblematic of a world in disorder.

We then move on to the second section, "Winners and Losers in the Great Transfor- mation," with contributions by Adam Michnik, Martin Palous, Valerie Bunce, and Vladimir Tismaneanu. Michnik takes a sober look back at 1989 in Poland and its consequences, re- jecting the view that "1989" was in some way betrayed: "No. We did not renounce our dreams; we only renounced our delusions" (88). Against those who called for more thorough-going lustration and vetting he argued: "We consider decommunization-that is, discrimination against former communist party activists-to be antidemocratic" (94). Bunce stresses the diversity, and the increasingly divergent trajectories, of postsocialist countries, in part explained by differing postcommunist settlements between old regime and new forces, which in turn helps explain distinctive patterns of democratization and economic reform.

In the third section, the "Vulnerabilities of the New Democracies" are explored by Katherine Verdery (discussing the way that individuals have been reshaped by privatiza- tion), ajoint chapter by Gail Kligman and Susan Gal on the "gendering" of postsocialism, and Kazimierz Z. Poznanski on "the morals of transition," examining the role of public vir- tue in economic reform and then providing a devastating critique of "shock therapy" ap-

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154 Slavic Review

proaches. Mikl6s Haraszti examines "the handshake tradition" (that is, informal relation- ships and trust) under postcommunism, while Ivan Vejvoda stresses (on the basis of Ser- bia) the need for not only the forms but also the spirit of democracy. The section includes Istvan Rev on "Counterrevolution," a powerful meditation on the malleability of historical memory and interpretation.

The fourth section looks at problems of identity and international integration under the rubric, "The New Europe: Prospects for Cooperation and Conflict." Karen Dawisha stresses the excessive weight of expectation placed on postcommunist elections, noting that the electoral politics that had been forged over decades in the west were thrust on the new democracies with little preparation, expecting them "not only [to] reflect the general will, but to shape it ... that they should not only cement the social contract, but write it ... not only mediate states' interactions with civil society, but substitute for it" (292). A range of identity issues are raised by Bartolomiej Kaminski (on integration with the European Union), Ilya Prizel (on nationalism in postcommunist Russia), comparisons with China by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, and Irena Grudzinska Gross on Adam Mickiewicz and sacred territory.

The fifth and final section, "Past, Present, Future," is written by Timothy Garton Ash, who provides some thought-provoking concluding comments on 1989 as a revolution and its legacies. Overall, the book works at all levels, demonstrating that an edited volume can ultimately be as coherent as a single-authored monograph, albeit employing a reticular rather than a linear methodology. Many of the authors' basic ideas have been developed elsewhere, but here succinct summaries of their positions are provided in a handy form. Of course, every reader will have their favorite items and will no doubt lament the absence of specific topics. In my view more attention to the concept of "postcommunism" could have provided a unifying thread for many of the chapters, but then this sort of artificial co- herence was probably wisely avoided by the editors. In short, they are to be congratulated for making available such a stimulating and timely, if not timeless, collection.

RICHARD SAKWA University of Kent at Canterbury, United Kingdom

The Posteommunist Citizen. Ed. Samuel H. Barnes and Janos Simon. Budapest: Erasmus Foundation and Institute for Political Science of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1998. xii, 272 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Figures. Tables. Paper.

The last decade has been a busy one for social scientists investigating the political attitudes of postcommunist societies. Faced with the many obstacles of examining a subject and a region that has been characterized as "a moving target," scholars have faced quite a chal- lenge. More ambitious than most, The Postcommunist Citizen presents a complex and de- tailed analysis of mass survey data collected in eastern and central Europe.

Most intriguing about this volume is the coordinated use of a "common core" of ques- tions to compare eleven regions on attitudes related to political and economic change. Emerging from a 1991 conference, the book includes data collected from November 1990 (Czechoslovakia) to November 1992 (former German Democratic Republic). There is a brief longitudinal analysis for Hungary on the basis of a 1993 survey and a more broadly comparative note in several chapters in which data from Spain is analyzed.

Of further interest in the book is the comparative nature of the seven analytical chap- ters (after the introduction) that extensively examine popular perceptions of various fac- tors (culture, identity, participation, and so on) that are deemed important to the devel- opment of liberal democracy. Thus, unlike many edited volumes, this book is well integrated and focuses on employing the data from each of the eleven regions through- out the text. Ultimately, the findings broadly support modernization expectations of sulp- port for democracy, although the conclusions are not so straightforward.

Given the revolutionary change in postcommunist Europe, one should be neither surprised nor troubled by the relative lack of clarity in the findings. Nevertheless, as one

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