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C. I.2.c.i. Comparative Studies

Garton Ash, Timothy, We the People: The Revolution of 89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague, London, Granta Books in association con Penguin, 1990, pp. 156

(Published in New York by Random House as The Magic Lantern).
Hawkes, Nigel, Tearing Down the Curtain: The People ‘s Revolution in Eastern Europe by a team from the Observer, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1990, pp. 160

Kenney, Padraic, A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989, 352, Princeton NJ, Princetown University Press, 2003

Youthful personal impressions combined with later historical research on Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. Especially strong on the playful resistance of groups such as the Orange Alternative in Wroclaw.
Meyer, Michael, The Year That Changed the World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall, New York, Scribner, 2009, pp. 255

Former Newsweek bureau chief in East Europe combines personal recollections with an analysis contesting the view that the US government made a significant contribution to the collapse of the regimes – except indirectly through cooperating with Gorbachev’s detente agenda.
Oberschall, Anthony, Opportunities and framing in the Eastern European revolts of 1989, In McAdam, Doug ; McCarthy, John D.; Zald, Mayer N., Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, , 1996, pp. 93-121

Emphasises the importance of the nonviolent moral force versus a force that had the means of control and repression but lacked moral authority.
Prins, Gwyn, Spring in Winter: The 1989 Revolutions, (Preface by Vaclav Havel), Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1990, pp. 251

Includes reflections by leading participants in revolutions from Hungary, Poland, East Germany and Czechoslovakia, a journalist’s view of ‘Why Romania could not avoid bloodshed’, and an essay by J.K. Galbraith on dangers of the triumph of a simplistic economic ideology, and a comparative chronology of 1988-1990.
Randle, Michael, People Power: The Building of a New European Home, Stroud, Hawthorne Press, 1991, pp. 224

Chapter 1 discusses the context of the revolutions, ch. 2 the build up of protest (including in Bulgaria) and the role of international pressures. Part II comprises interviews with key participants in 1989, both about the revolutions and future possibilities. Includes interviews on Romania and Slovenia.
Roberts, Adam, Civil Resistance in the East European and Soviet Revolutions, Cambridge MA, Albert Einstein Institution, 1991, pp. 43

Sarotte, Mary Elise, 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe, Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 2009, pp. 344

Highly-praised analysis challenging the inevitability of German reunification and the spread of NATO. Discusses role of political leaders and dissidents in 1989, drawing on documents and interviews, and assesses the views from various world capitals.
Saxonberg, Steven, The Fall: A Comparative Study of the End of Communism in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland, London, Routledge, 2004, pp. 434

Chapter 10 ‘Nonviolent Revolutions’ compares Czechoslovakia and East Germany.
Simpson, John, Dispatches from the Barricades: An Eye-Witness Account of the Revolution that Shook the World, London, Hutchinson, 1990, pp. 320

By BBC reporter; includes a chapter on Romania.
Stokes, Gale, The Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, New York, Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 319

An analytical account sketching in the historical background and tracing the growing opposition during the 1980s.

See also:

Jürgen Habermas, What does Socialism Mean Today? The Rectifying Revolution and the Need for New Thinking on the Left, New Left Review, 1990