How have the 27 countries that emerged from communist rule between 1989 and 1992 fared since then? This book offers distinctive perspectives, by four leading students of politics, on the single most important social, political, and economic development of the last decade of the twentieth century. Stephen Holmes, of the University of Chicago, emphasizes the importance of state-building. He interprets the pathologies of post-communism as being rooted in the weakness of governments across post-communist Eurasia. Lord Skidelsky, of Great Britain's Social Market Foundation, sees the collapse of communism and its aftermath as part of the worldwide struggle to reduce the size of the state. John Mueller, of the University of Rochester, writes that the post-communist transition to capitalism and democracy, as these terms are properly understood, is already complete. Charles Gati, of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, argues the contrary: not only is democracy not firmly established in most of the countries from Berlin to Vladivostok, but its prospects in many of them are poor. In his introduction, Michael Mandelbaum offers a comparative assessment of the different countries that make up the world of post-communism.
Michael Mandelbaum is the Christian A. Herter Professor of American Foreign Policy at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. and is the director of the American Foreign Policy Program there. He has also held teaching posts at Harvard and Columbia Universities, and at the United States Naval Academy.
His most recent book, written with co-author Thomas L. Friedman, is THAT USED TO BE US: HOW AMERICA FELL BEHIND IN THE WORLD IT INVENTED AND HOW WE CAN COME BACK. Its publication date is September 5, 2011.
He serves on the board of advisors of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Washington-based organization sponsoring research and public discussion on American policy toward the Middle East.
A graduate of Yale College, Professor Mandelbaum earned his Master's degree at King's College, Cambridge University and his doctorate at Harvard University.
Professor Mandelbaum is the author or co-author of numerous articles and of 13 books: That Used To Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back (2011) with co-author Thomas L. Friedman; The Frugal Superpower: America's Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era (2010); Democracy's Good Name: The Rise and Risks of the World's Most Popular Form of Government (2007); The Case For Goliath: How America Acts As The World's Government in the Twenty-first Century (2006); The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football and Basketball and What They See When They Do (2004); The Ideas That Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy and Free Markets in the Twenty-First Century (2002); The Dawn of Peace in Europe (1996); The Fate of Nations: The Search for National Security in the 19th and 20th Centuries (1988); The Global Rivals, (co-author, 1988); Reagan and Gorbachev (co-author, 1987); The Nuclear Future (1983); The Nuclear Revolution: International Politics Before and After Hiroshima (1981); and The Nuclear Question: The United States and Nuclear Weapons, 1946-1976 (1979). He is also the editor of twelve books.
