Review by Choice Review
This concise, but not necessarily authoritative, study attempts to provide an alternative account of the collapse of communism through the explorations of economic history of six East European countries (Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia). Although the authors' insistence on the importance of economic issues is certainly warranted, the fact that nearly all of the literature consulted is rather recent hardly qualifies this book as a study in economic history. The authors' treatment of the major issues is quite elementary and is already well known. The elaboration of recent events, especially the Yugoslav disintegration and the nationalities question, is superficial and occasionally inaccurate. In general, apart from a tendency to handle important issues anecdotally, this book, like many others in the field of economic history, suffers from not being "economic enough" or "sufficiently historic." References. Upper-division undergraduates and above. Z. Suster; University of New Haven
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
