Socialism vanquished, socialism challenged : Eastern Europe and China, 1989-2009 / edited by Nina Bandelj and Dorothy J. Solinger.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Socialism Vanquished, Socialism Challenged examines the twenty-year aftermath of the 1989 assaults on established, state-sponsored socialism in the former Soviet bloc and in China. Editors Nina Bandelj and Dorothy J. Solinger bring together prominent experts on Eastern Europe and China to examine the respective trajectories of political, economic, and social transformations that unfolded in these two areas, while also comparing the changes that ensued within the two regions.

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CHOICE Review

This conference volume is intended to promote comparative research on the collapse of communist regimes, developments deriving thereof in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and the intensification of deep changes, mostly economic, in China. Bandelj (sociology, Univ. of California, Irvine) specializes in East European studies and Solinger (political science, Univ. of California, Irvine) in China studies. The other contributors are social scientists from either of those two specializations. Together the contributions span a wide topical range but are of uneven quality. Many of the individual contributions evidence little or no originality in either the case-study materials they draw upon or insightfulness. The volume lacks the theoretical and conceptual refinement needed to ground solid comparative research. The editors assert the need for such research centering on Eastern Europe and China, but neither they nor the other contributors make the case persuasively, leaving readers to ask, how should one proceed? The volume will be of interest mostly to professional scholars and graduate students specializing in East European or China studies. Summing Up: Optional. Graduate, research, and professional collections. A. Magid emeritus, SUNY at Albany