Eastern Europe addresses the emergence of uncertain pluralism in the region following the disintegration of the communist regimes in 1989. Taking a broad historical approach, the volume considers issues and challenges that have marked Eastern Europe from 1939 through World War II and the era of socialism, up to the present. Eight comprehensive country studies are augmented by detailed assessments of economic developments, security issues, religious currents, cultural policies, and gender relations in the region.

Yugoslavia exploded onto the front pages of world newspapers in the early 1990s. The War of Yugoslav Succession of 1991 1995 convinced many that interethnic violence was endemic to politics in Yugoslavia and that the Yugoslav meltdown had occurred because of ancient hatreds. In this thematic history of Yugoslavia in the 20th century, Sabrina P. Ramet demonstrates that, on the contrary, the instability of the three 20th-century Yugoslav states the interwar kingdom (1918 41), socialist Yugoslavia (1945 91), and the rump Yugoslav state created in 1992, consisting of Serbia and Montenegro can...

Gender Politics in the Western Balkans traces the development of women's consciousness in the lands of the South Slavs from the early years of the twentieth century, on the eve of the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, to the situation during and after the Serbian Insurrectionary War of 1991-95. The book embraces historical chapters, contemporary political analyses, and cultural studies (focusing on literature and religion).

Socialist Yugoslavia undertook a relatively unusual experiment during the forty-six years of its existence (1945-91)--to eliminate...

With the collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe between 1989 and 1991, right-wing extremist parties have emerged and claimed a prominence that they have not enjoyed since the early 1940s. The Radical Right in Central and Eastern Europe Since 1989 examines the activity of these groups in the region stretching from Germany to Russia. Few, if any, comparable books offer readers an overview of how the radical right is faring in Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Russia. Among the countries reviewed, only Slovakia...

With the collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe between 1989 and 1991, right-wing extremist parties have emerged and claimed a prominence that they have not enjoyed since the early 1940s. The Radical Right in Central and Eastern Europe Since 1989 examines the activity of these groups in the region stretching from Germany to Russia. Few, if any, comparable books offer readers an overview of how the radical right is faring in Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Russia. Among the countries reviewed, only Slovakia...

During their thirteen years in power, Slobodan Milosevic and his cohorts plunged Yugoslavia into wars of ethnic cleansing, leading to the murder of thousands of civilians. The Milosevic regime also subverted the nation's culture, twisted the political mainstream into a virulent nationalist mold, sapped the economy through war and the criminalization of a free market, returned to gender relations of a bygone era, and left the state so dysfunctional that its peripheries--Kosovo, Vojvodina, and Montenegro--have been struggling to maximize their distance from Belgrade, through far-reaching...