CEU Press books are distributed also in digital version. See the top 20 e-sales from 2005 till June 2008.

Bestsellers on two tracks. Five titles figure both among traditional and digital top 20: A Cardboard Castle, A Biographical Dictionary of Women's Movements, Russian Foreign Policy, Ascensions on High, and Ideologies and National Identities.

"A sharp, thoughtful, graciously written study, based on impressive research in the archives of the French and Italian parties, as well as East German records, for insights into Soviet actions. The book does not change the overall understanding of the positions and roles of the two parties, but it adds much rich detail and subtlety. Summing up: highly recommended". – Choice on Which Socialism, Whose Détente?

"The four case studies provide substantial grist for those interested in generalizations about successful state building. Furthermore, specialists should find the cross-country comparisons on the development of tax regimes interesting. Summing up: recommended." – Choice on State-Building

"Filled with new information and original ideas and offering intriguing incentives for further research, this well-edited volume is not only a remarkable edition to the literature on European eugenics but provides invaluable insights into the broader currents of intellectual life in central and southeast Europe.” – Slavic Review on Blood and Homeland

Both From Solidarity to Martial Law and Islam and Tolerance in Wider Europe are highly recommended by Choice.

In the past few years Carleton University, as well as the Universities of Kansas and Maryland have excelled in adopting CEU Press books for courses. Our most popular titles were Prague Tales, A Life Under Russian Serfdom and Between Past and Future.

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Narratives Unbound
Historical studies in post-communist Eastern Europe

Edited by

Sorin Antohi, Orbis Tertius, Institute of Cultural Studies, Bucharest
Balázs Trencsényi, Assistant Professor of History, Central European University, Budapest
Péter Apor, Research Fellow, Pasts, Inc. Center for Historical Studies, Central European University, Budapest

The first work that covers the post-Communist development of historical studies in six Eastern European countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. A uniquely critical and qualitative analysis from a comparative and critical perspective, written by scholars from the region itself.

Focusing on the first post-Communist decade, 1989–1999, the book offers a longer-term perspective that includes the immediate ‘prehistory’ of that momentous decade as well as its ‘posthistoire’. The authors capture the spirit of 1989, that heady mix of elation, surprise, determination, and hope: l’ivresse du possible. This was the paradoxical beginning of Eastern European post-Communism: ushered in by ‘anti-Utopian’ revolutions, and slowly finding its course towards a bureaucratic, imitative, challenging, and anachronistic restoration of a capitalism that had changed almost beyond recognition when it had mutated into the negative double of Communism. Each individual chapter has numerous and detailed notes and references.

Contents

Sorin Antohi: Narratives Unbound: A Brief Introduction to Post-Communist Historical Studies; Balázs Trencsényi and Péter Apor: Fine-Tuning the Polyphonic Past. Hungarian Historical Writing in the 1990s; Maciej Górny: From the Splendid Past into the Unknown Future. Historical Studies in Poland after 1989; Pavel Kolář and Michal Kopeček: A Difficult Quest for New Paradigms: Czech Historiography After 1989; Zora Hlavičková: Wedged Between National and Trans-National History: Slovak Historiography in the 1990s; Cristina Petrescu and Dragoş Petrescu: Mastering vs. Coming to Terms with the Past. A Critical Analysis of Post-Communist Romanian Historiography; Ivan Elenkov and Daniela Koleva: Historical Studies in Post-Communist Bulgaria. Between Academic Standards and Political Agendas

"The historian’s craft from the annus mirabilis (1989) to the fin-de-siecle is scrutinized by a team of young scholars from Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria. Inspired by and atuned to a truly comparative agenda and methodology, these richly detailed and rigorously analytical surveys of the historical profession in the six post-communist countries provide an indispensable base for transregional and transnational comparisons and syntheses. A valuable and well-crafted volume that brings historiography to the center-stage and that, hopefully, will inspire similar endeavors not only across Europe but also in the newly emerging field of world history."
Maria Todorova, Professor of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

"To find itself and its way into the future, Europe needs to look at its past and at its historiography. This book closes a hurting gap in our knowledge of historical studies and of their public resonance in six countries from East Central and Southeastern Europe, usually overlooked by syntheses devoted to European historical studies. The editors and the authors provide abundant information on and thorough critical assessments of the way scholars from these EU newcomers research, understand, and represent their respective national histories after the dramatic turn of 1989. Thus, they significantly contribute to the articulation of a vision of Europe as a living unity of diverse and interactive pasts."
Jörn Rüsen, President, Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut. Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, Essen

"This collection of studies of Eastern European historiography will be much welcomed by Western European and New World scholars. The coverage of the six countries treated is comprehensive, the issues clearly identified, and the scholarship impressive. Anyone interested in the problem of writing history in the wake of the Second World War in contested areas (and what areas were not?) will want to study this book. Antohi is an authoritative expert on historiography and one of the few theorists of history and history writing with a cosmopolitan perspective."
Hayden White, University Professor Emeritus, University of California, and Professor of Comparative Literature, Stanford University

 

2007
512 pages
ISBN 978-963-7326-85-1 cloth $54.95 / €35.95/ £24.95

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