Ebook: Imposing, maintaining, and tearing open the Iron Curtain: the Cold War and East-Central Europe, 1945-1989

Central Europe and the onset of the Iron Curtain. Stalin, Soviet policy, and the establishment of a communist bloc in Eastern Europe, 1941-1949 / Mark Kramer -- The United States and Eastern Europe, 1943-1948 / Michael F. Hopkins -- Concessions or conviction? Czechoslovakia's road to the Cold War and the Soviet bloc / Vít Smetana -- Hungary's role in the Soviet bloc, 1945-1956 / László Borhi -- Stalin, the split with Yugoslavia, and Soviet East European efforts to reassert control, 1948-1953 / Mark Kramer -- Austria, Germany, and the Cold War, 1945-1955 / Rolf Steininger -- Neutrality for Germany or stabilizing the Eastern Bloc? New evidence on the decision-making process of the Stalin note / Peter Ruggenthaler -- The German question and intra-bloc politics in the post-Stalin era. The Berlin Wall: looking back on the history of the wall twenty years after its fall / Hope M. Harrison -- The German problem and security in Europe "Hindrance or catalyst on the path to 1989-1990" / Oliver Bange -- Germany and East-Central Europe, 1945-1990: the view from London / Anne Deighton -- The German question as seen from Paris / Georges-Henri Soutou -- Cold War, détente and the Soviet bloc: the evolution of intra-bloc foreign policy coordination, 1953-1975 / Csaba Békés -- The role of East-Central Europe in ending the Cold War. Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and the revolutions of 1989: U.S. myths versus the primary sources / Thomas Blanton -- Moscow and Eastern Europe 1988-1989: a policy of optimism and caution / Alex Pravda -- The opening of the wall, Eastern Europe, and Gorbachev's vision of Europe after the Cold War / Svetlana Savranskaya -- Pulling the rug: East-Central Europe and the implosion of East Germany / Bernd Schaefer -- The demise of the Soviet bloc / Mark Kramer -- Long-term perspectives on the Cold War and its end. Nuclear weapons and the Cold War in Europe / David Holloway -- Why did the Cold War last so long? / Mark Kramer -- The end of the Cold War as a non-linear confluence / Richard Ned Lebow -- Conspicuous connections: 1968 and 1989 / Oldrich Tuma -- 1989 in historical perspective: the problem of legitimation / Silvio Pons -- The end of the Cold War and the transformation of Cold War history: a tale of two conferences, 1988-1989 / James G. Hershberg.;Imposing, Maintaining, and Tearing Open the Iron Curtain: The Cold War and East-Central Europe, 1945-1989, edited by Mark Kramer and Vít Smetana, provides an in-depth survey of the origins, consolidation, slow erosion, and abrupt demise of the Cold War divisions in Europe after World War II. The contributors to this volume examine how the Cold War kept the continent divided for nearly 45 years, but ultimately came to a largely peaceful end, contrary to expectations.