BOOKS DRAWN ON FOR THIS ESSAY

1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe
by Mary Elise Sarotte
Princeton University Press, 321 pp., $29.95

Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment
by Stephen Kotkin, with a contribution by Jan T. Gross
Modern Library, 197 pp., $24.00

Der Vorhang Geht Auf: Das Ende der Diktaturen in Osteuropa
by György Dalos
Munich: C.H. Beck, 272 pp., e19.90

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Written by Various Editors Dissent Magazine

NINETEEN-EIGHTY-NINE WAS a year of historic revolution and possibility. Popular and often nonviolent uprisings overturned communist rule in much of Eastern and Central Europe; and pro-democracy movements began to challenge its legitimacy in the Soviet Union and China. “Nothing in our past thinking, or in anyone else’s, prepared us for the remarkable turn of events,” wrote Irving Howe in 1990. “So much the worse for theory, so much the better for life!”

But has life changed dramatically for the better? While many economies have begun to liberalize, political illiberalism still lurks. And while many on the left hoped that social democracy might replace communism, many post-Soviet nations have adopted the policies of neoliberalism and the language of nationalism. “Any great social change unleashes great expectations,” Adam Michnik observed in 1999. “And therefore, of course, it leads to great disappointments.”

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The third issue of Volume 2 of The Global Studies Journal has now been published.

Volume 2, Number 3 contains:

• The Impossible Dream: Consensus-Based International Climate Change Responses by Beth Edmondson.
• Global Complexities and the Rise of Global Justice Movement: A New Notion of Justice? by S. A. Hamed Hosseini.
• Economic Reforms in India and the Conflicting Naxalite Movement by Adhitya Srinivasan.
• Decision and Implementation Models for Outsourcing by Vikash Sananda and Austin Melton.
• Green Marketing: A Challenge or an Opportunity in the Global Environment by Ravindra P. Saxena and Pradeep K. Khandelwal.
• Quest for Authenticity in Indian Classical Dance: Innovations and Hybridization of Bharatanatyam on Global Stage by Suparna Banerjee.

• Globalization: The Case for Ideological Realignment? by Rafal Soborski.
• Identities and International Justice by Rebecca Cameron.
• Hip-Hop Hybridity for a Glocalized World: African and Muslim Diasporic Discourses in French Rap Music by David Drissel.
• Fighting Back Amazonian Deforestation in Ecuador: Individuals, Communities and the State in their Struggle to Save the Lungs of the World by Ivan Humberto Jimenez-Williams.
• The Decision to Study at Postgraduate Level in Another Country: A Case Study by Des Monk.
• The Influence of Environmental Factors on Bosnian Refugees’ Resettlement Process by Wai Hsien Cheah, Ajlina Karamehic-Muratovic, Hisako Matsuo and Alma Poljarevic.
• The Rise of Asian Security Regionalism: An Area of Rivalry or Cooperation for the Regional and Global Players? by Visne Korkmaz.
• Globalization of a Business School: Essential Components by Nader Asgary.
• Comparing Media Systems: Re-evaluating the Role of the Public Media in the Digital Age by Carolina Oliveira Matos.