HIST 389W - History Matters III: Senior Research Project

John Dornberg explores the drama of the disintegration of Communist Eastern Europe and the painful emergence of new regimes. The author, a professional journalist who has served as bureau chief for Newsweek in Bonn, Vienna, and Moscow, brings an insider's perspective to the unfamiliar political systems and complex foreign relations of these nations. This outstanding and timely study covers Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Albania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the five Yugoslav successor states.

Eastern Europe has been in ongoing crisis since the breakup of the Soviet Union. This important book provides basic, up-to-date information on the events and background that have led up to the current crisis, and the volume includes helpful maps and photographs of key figures and scenes of everyday life. Librarians will value this reference tool as a reliable, informative source for students and others trying to understand today's conflicts. The volume covers all of the countries that formed the colonial empire of the Soviet Union--Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary, Poland, Romania, and former Yugoslavia. In an introductory essay, Held begins with an overview of the region's general characteristics and history prior to 1945. The volume is then divided into separate sections on each country. Each section includes basic information about the country, a map, and a chronology followed by entries, arranged alphabetically, on people, places, political parties, and the events that have shaped the country's history since 1945. The book is the only comprehensive one-volume dictionary on East European personalities, politicians, and history since 1945.

The cornerstones of this detailed reference work are the long-form articles in individual countries/regions, the article on Poland being particularly in depth.

"This four-volume set features nearly 1,500 entries by experts on all aspects of Russian history, including relations between Russia and other eastern European kingdoms and states, important biographical figures, geographical areas, ethnographic groups, cultural landmarks, military campaigns, and social issues."

This volume provides information on population, location, history, food, holidays and celebrations on both modern and ancient cultures from Eastern Europe. Essays of 5-15 pages discuss the background and modern structure of each, including Albania, Poland, Lithuania, Romania and others.

Identifies the development and contemporary use of the significant concepts in history.