Abstract

More than 25 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, European integration remains a work in progress, especially in those Eastern European nations most dramatically reshaped by democratization and economic liberalization. This volume assembles detailed, empirically grounded studies of eleven states—Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and the former East Germany—that went on to join the European Union. Each chapter analyzes the political, economic, and social transformations that have taken place in these nations, using a comparative approach to identify structural similarities and assess outcomes relative to one another as well as the rest of the EU.

Günther Heydemann is the Chair for Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Leipzig and Director of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism at the Technical University of Dresden. He has taught in the United States, Italy, Russia, and Tunisia. His most recent publication is Sachsen und der Nationalsozialismus, coedited with Jan Erik Schulte and Francesca Weil (2014).

Karel Vodička is a Researcher at the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism at the Technical University of Dresden. His publications include Zündfunke aus Prag: Wie der Mut zur Freiheit die Geschichte veränderte (2014).