Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Envisioning Eastern Europe PDF full book. Access full book title Envisioning Eastern Europe.
| Author | : Michael D. Kennedy |
| Publisher | : University of Michigan Press |
| Total Pages | : 266 |
| Release | : 1994 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 9780472105564 |
Explorations of cultural change in the former Soviet bloc
| Author | : Gyorgy Peteri |
| Publisher | : University of Pittsburgh Pre |
| Total Pages | : 338 |
| Release | : 2010 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 082297391X |
This volume presents work from an international group of writers who explore conceptualizations of what defined “East” and “West” in Eastern Europe, imperial Russia, and the Soviet Union. The contributors analyze the effects of transnational interactions on ideology, politics, and cultural production. They reveal that the roots of an East/West cultural divide were present many years prior to the rise of socialism and the Cold War.
The chapters offer insights into the complex stages of adoption and rejection of Western ideals in areas such as architecture, travel writings, film, music, health care, consumer products, political propaganda, and human rights. They describe a process of mental mapping whereby individuals “captured and possessed” Western identity through cultural encounters and developed their own interpretations from these experiences. Despite these imaginaries, political and intellectual elites devised responses of resistance, defiance, and counterattack to defy Western impositions.
Socialists believed that their cultural forms and collectivist strategies offered morally and materially better lives for the masses and the true path to a modern society. Their sentiments toward the West, however, fluctuated between superiority and inferiority. But in material terms, Western products, industry, and technology, became the ever-present yardstick by which progress was measured. The contributors conclude that the commodification of the necessities of modern life and the rise of consumerism in the twentieth century made it impossible for communist states to meet the demands of their citizens. The West eventually won the battle of supply and demand, and thus the battle for cultural influence.
| Author | : James F. Brown |
| Publisher | : Duke University Press |
| Total Pages | : 388 |
| Release | : 1994 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 9780822314646 |
After the exuberance that marked the revolutions of 1989, the countries of Eastern Europe have faced the breathtakingly ambitious task of remaking their societies. Simultaneously they have sought to build liberal democracies based on market economics, while confronting reassertions of claims for national independence long suppressed. Taking up where his previous book Surge to Freedom ended, J. F. Brown's Hopes and Shadows analyzes the results of the first four years of Eastern Europe's separation from communist rule and the prospects for the future. The forces at work in the midst of this revolution are examined from a perspective that is necessarily both historical and contemporary as the complex relationship between the tasks that face these countries and the legacy of their communist and pre-communist past shape the difficult present. As the usefulness of the designation "Eastern Europe" is itself questioned, Brown provides both regional and country-by-country analysis of the political situation. The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland are grouped together, as are Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania, to address questions such as the development of liberal democratic culture, the activation of democratic institutions and procedures, and the future of former communist bureaucracies. He considers the former Yugoslavia-now torn violently apart-largely as a separate case. The theoretical, political, social, financial, cultural, and psychological dimensions of the transition from socialism to a market economy are discussed in detail. The final aspect of this revolution, the failure of which most immediately threatens the entire process, is the attempt to build new and stable national statehoods. Brown explores the history and impact of the current reemergence of nationalism and the dangers it represents. A comprehensive and authoritative survey, J. F. Brown's analysis and presentation of the contemporary Eastern European political landscape will be essential reading for scholars and specialists and of great interest to general readers.
| Author | : Sabrina P. Ramet |
| Publisher | : |
| Total Pages | : 448 |
| Release | : 1998 |
| Genre | : Business & Economics |
| ISBN | : |
In this textbook students will find a presentation of the historical issues and current challenges shaping one of the world's most volatile regions.
| Author | : Daina Stukuls Eglitis |
| Publisher | : Penn State Press |
| Total Pages | : 279 |
| Release | : 2002-09-08 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 0271023813 |
Every epoch produces its own notions of social change, and the post-Communist societies of Eastern Europe are no exception. Imagining the Nation explores the fate of contemporary Latvia, a small country with a big story that is relevant for anyone wishing to better understand the nature of post-Communist transitions. As Latvia and other former Soviet-bloc countries seek to rebuild and transform their societies, what is the central dynamic at work? In Imagining the Nation, Daina Stukuls Eglitis finds that in virtually all aspects of life the guiding sentiment among Latvians has been a desire for normality in the wake of the "deformations" that marked the half-century of Soviet rule. In seeking to return to normality, many people look to the West for models; others look back in time to the period of Latvian independence from 1918 to 1940 before the years of Soviet domination. Ultimately, the changes in Latvia and other Eastern European countries are closely tied to a vital reimagining of the past, as the logic of progress long associated with "revolution" is amalgamated with nostalgia for what is gone. The radiant utopias of revolution give way to widely shared aspirations for a return to the normal in politics, place names, private property, and even gender relations. Eglitis draws upon published and unpublished documents, campaign posters, maps, and monuments, as well as interviews with Latvians from all walks of life. The resulting picture of life in contemporary Latvia offers fresh perspective on a dilemma facing millions throughout the post-Communist world.
| Author | : Larry Wolff |
| Publisher | : Stanford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 444 |
| Release | : 1994 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 9780804727020 |
Wolff explores how Western thinkers contributed to defining and characterizing Eastern Europe as half-civilized and barbaric.
| Author | : Eric R. Wolf |
| Publisher | : Univ of California Press |
| Total Pages | : 357 |
| Release | : 1999 |
| Genre | : Social Science |
| ISBN | : 0520215362 |
This text explores the historical relationship of ideas, power and culture. Looking at several case studies, it analyses how the regnant ideology intertwines with power around the pivotal relationships that govern social labour.
| Author | : Noel B. Salazar |
| Publisher | : Berghahn Books |
| Total Pages | : 264 |
| Release | : 2010-11-01 |
| Genre | : Social Science |
| ISBN | : 9781845456610 |
As tourism service standards become more homogeneous, travel destinations worldwide are conforming yet still trying to maintain, or even increase, their distinctiveness. Based on more than two years of fieldwork in Yogyakarta, Indonesia and Arusha, Tanzania, this book offers an in-depth investigation of the local-to-global dynamics of contemporary tourism. Each destination offers examples that illustrate how tour guide narratives and practices are informed by widely circulating imaginaries of the past as well as personal imaginings of the future.
| Author | : Michael Kraus |
| Publisher | : Westview Press |
| Total Pages | : 376 |
| Release | : 1996-05-23 |
| Genre | : Business & Economics |
| ISBN | : |
Examining the key challenges confronting Russia and Eastern Europe, this multidisciplinary volume considers the constitutional, political, economic, security, and national identity issues facing these post-communist societies. Drawing upon both theory and case studies informed by newly available primary sources, leading U.S. and Russian specialists provide a comprehensive balance sheet of the achievements and costs of the ongoing economic and political transformation. They also examine the prospects for a thriving civil society and for the region's integration into European and global economic and security institutions.
| Author | : Edmond J Coleman |
| Publisher | : Routledge |
| Total Pages | : 442 |
| Release | : 2014-05-22 |
| Genre | : Social Science |
| ISBN | : 1317955587 |
Important new findings on sex and gender in the former Soviet Bloc! Sexuality and Gender in Postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia is a groundbreaking look at the new sexual reality in Central, Eastern, and Southeast Europe after the fall of communism. The book presents the kind of candid discussion of sexual identities, sexual politics, and gender arrangements that was often censored and rarely discussed openly before the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1987. Authors from a variety of disciplines examine how the changes caused by rapid economic and social transformation have affected human sexuality and if those changes can generate the social tolerance necessary to produce a well-rooted democracy. The first theoretical and empirical body of work to sexuality in (post)transitional countries, Sexuality and Gender in Postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia examines the effects of the profound social transformation taking place in the former Soviet Union. Through an interdisciplinary perspective, the book addresses vital issues of this transformation, including gender relations, gender roles and sex norms in transition, sexual representations in the media, patterns of adult sexual behavior, gay and lesbian issues, sex trafficking, health risks, and sex education. The book also presents a critical examination of whether the fall of communism has, in fact, induced changes in sexuality and gender relations. Sexuality and Gender in Postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia examines the changes in sex and gender in countries in transition, including: the negative consequences of Serbia’s “state-directed non-development” during the 1990s the causes and consequences of trafficking in women from the Russian Federation the ongoing debate over human rights for sexual minorities in Romania the effects of two Yugoslavian films released in the 1990s that feature transgender characters sexualities in transition in Croatia problems created by changes in sexual behavior among urban Russian adolescents the social and legal state of lesbians in Slovenia Sexuality and Gender in Postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia fills in the gap in the current knowledge and understanding of the effects of the profound social changes taking place in Central, Eastern, and Southeast Europe. The book is an essential read for academics and researchers working in gender studies, political science, and gay and lesbian studies. Handy tables and figures make the information easy to access and understand.
