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The Year that Changed the World Michael Meyer

The Year that Changed the World By Michael Meyer

The Year that Changed the World by Michael Meyer


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Summary

A riveting account of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Year that Changed the World Summary

The Year that Changed the World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall by Michael Meyer

'Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!' This declamation by president Ronald Reagan when visiting Berlin in 1987 is widely cited as the clarion call that brought the Cold War to an end. The West had won, so this version of events goes, because the West had stood firm. American and Western European resoluteness had brought an evil empire to its knees.

Michael Meyer, in this extraordinarily compelling account of the revolutions that roiled Eastern Europe in 1989, begs to differ. Drawing together breathtakingly vivid, on-the-ground accounts of the rise of Solidarity in Poland, the stealth opening of the Hungarian border, the Velvet Revolution in Prague, and the collapse of the infamous wall in Berlin, Meyer shows that western intransigence was only one of the many factors that provoked such world-shaking change.

More important, Meyer contends, were the stands taken by individuals in the thick of the struggle, leaders such as poet and playwright Vaclav Havel in Prague; Lech Walesa; the quiet and determined reform prime minister in Budapest, Miklos Nemeth; and the man who realized his empire was already lost and decided, with courage and intelligence, to let it go in peace, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.

Michael Meyer captures these heady days in all their rich drama and unpredictability, providing a thrilling chronicle of perhaps the most important year of the 20th century.

About Michael Meyer

Michael Meyer is currently Director of Communications for the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. Between 1988 and 1992,he was Newsweeks Bureau Chief for Germany, Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. He has worked at the Washington Post and has won a numberof international journalism awards. He is the author of Alexander Compex. He lives in New York.

Additional information

GOR010698036
9781847394347
1847394345
The Year that Changed the World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall by Michael Meyer
Used - Like New
Paperback
Simon & Schuster Ltd
2010-08-05
272
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
The book has been read, but looks new. The book cover has no visible wear, and the dust jacket is included if applicable. No missing or damaged pages, no tears, possible very minimal creasing, no underlining or highlighting of text, and no writing in the margins

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