Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century - And After [Paperback]

R. J. Crampton (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415164230 | ISBN-13: 978-0415164238 | Publication Date: September 28, 1997 | Edition: 2

Covering all key Eastern European states and their history right up to the collapse of communism, this second edition of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After is a comprehensive political history of Eastern Europe taking in the whole of the century and the geographical area.

Focusing on the attempt to create and maintain a functioning democracy, this new edition now:

• examines events in Bosnia and Herzegovina
• includes a new consideration of the evolution of the region since the revolutions of 1989–91
• surveys the development of a market economy
• analyzes the realignment of Eastern Europe towards the West
• details the emergence of organized crime
• discusses each state individually
• includes an up-to-date bibliography.

Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After provides an accessible introduction to this key area which is invaluable to students of modern and political history.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'a well-written book' - Tribune

About the Author

Richard Crampton is Professor of Eastern European History at Oxford University and is the author of Atlas of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century (Routledge 1995).

Product Details

• Paperback: 532 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 2 edition (September 28, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415164230
• ISBN-13: 978-0415164238
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #549,197 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive, detailed, and scholarly., May 30, 2003

By 

Robert Williams (Seattle) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century - And After (Paperback)

I am not an authority on Eastern Europe; I read this book as a (very successful) undergraduate in social sciences. I enjoyed the thorough, methodically-organized text. Crampton divides the text into time periods or event trends, and examines each country's experience in detail. The organization is this text's strongest point. Its other great asset is the degree of detail. It combines a historian's "big-picture" view of trends with a nearly journalistic (I hope the word doesn't offend!) chronology of political events at crucial moments. This pair of perspectives, together with the fact that headings make it easy to identify sections for quick reference, made this a really good book for me.

Now the downside: all of this detail makes the book terribly long. The prose, particularly in early sections, is unnecessarily verbose and not particularly well-constructed. I am quite comfortable reading academic texts; this one could be better. Teachers using this text should include some sort of geography primer; I think that even if Americans were geographically compotent, we would need help with some of these references to non-political regional names. I do not consider this a weakness, however, and generally endorse this text; my course used several of these chronologies, and this was easily the best. If your students will read 500+ pages of rather obscure text, Crampton will serve you very well.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 20th Century Easter Europe, September 6, 2008

By 

L. M. Cheney (New Mexico) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century - And After (Hardcover)

I am an early modern european historian, the 20th century has not been a focus for me, however, Crampton's book has been a wonderful source of information on this time period. Understanding what happened in the 20th century helps those of us who are interested, make sense of the 21st century. Eastern Europe is a complicated area, to understand the nuances of diplomacy, the Austrian-Hungarian empire and how Russis played a part in the formation of WWI is invaluable. Well written, lots of good information and a great springboard for further study.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good on tiny details not so hot on the big picture., October 19, 2003

By 

Maureen Ogorman "leneker" (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century - And After (Paperback)

If, like me, you are no expert on Eastern Europe, then this book is reassuring in that it proves someone out there is. However it really does nothing to help weave a broad picture for the reader or to explain well the context surrrounding the events. I certainly felt less confident about my knowledge of the region after reading it than before.

There could be more overview and less detail and this book would not have suffered for it.