Edited by Michal Kopeček and Piotr Wciślik
Michal Kopeček,
Head of the Department of Late- and Post-Socialism Studies, Institute for Contemporary History, Prague,
and Assistant Professor of Czech and Central
European History, Faculty of Arts,
Charles University, Prague.
Piotr Wciślik, PhD candidate, Central
European University, Budapest, and affiliated
with the Digital Humanities Center at IBL
PAN,Warsaw.
Thinking through Transition is the first
concentrated effort to explore the most
recent chapter of East Central European
past from the perspective of intellectual
history. Post-socialism can be understood
as a period of scarcity and preponderance
of ideas, the dramatic eclipsing of the
dissident legacy (aswell as the older political
traditions), and the rise of technocratic and
post-political governance. This book, grounded in empirical research sensitive
to local contexts, proposes instead a history
of adaptations, entanglements, and unintended
consequences. In order to enable
and invite comparison, the volume is
structured around major domains of political
thought, some of them generic (liberalism,
conservatism, the Left), others (populism
and politics of history) deemed typical for
post-socialism. However, as shown by the
authors, the generic often turns out to be
heavily dependent on its immediate setting,
and the typical resonates with processes that are anything but vernacular.
"It is impossible, after reading this volume, to still give any credit to those who claimed
that 1989 was a revolution without ideas, or could not be a revolution because it
offered no ideas. We should be grateful that a new generation of scholars—most of
whom not burdened by the assumptions and affinities that have inhibited
participants and contemporary observers—can look with a cool eye both at the
thinking that accompanied radical change and at the sometimes bizarre amalgams
that have furnished political language in the last quarter-century in East Central
Europe." -
Padraic Kenney, Professor of History and International Studies, Indiana University
"This is the most comprehensive and balanced intellectual history so far available of
post-communist East Central Europe, and it is particularly instructive on the
diversity of the field. The book is essential reading for those who want to know how
the multiple transformations of the region were understood from within."
- Jóhann P. Árnason, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, La Trobe University,Melbourne
608 pages, 2015
978 963 3860 85 4 cloth
$75.00 / €58.00 / £49.00
"Based on the richness and merits of the volume, the readers are invited to discover that Thinking through Transition is not 'just another' book on an old topic, but essential reading for those who wish to understand the period in question. Furthermore, the novelty of the approach and the scholarly - and also public - usefulness of such a collective effort give ground to the hope that this volume is the first attempt in a series of historical reflections on our recent past and troubled present." - Visegrad Insight
