Purdue University Press will be publishing Everyday Postsocialism in Eastern Europe: History Doesn’t Travel in One Direction in September 2024.
The collapse of state socialism ushered in dramatic political and economic change, producing new freedoms and opportunities, but also new challenges and disappointments. Focusing on laborers, professionals, youth, women, sexual minorities, foreign students, and emigrants, Everyday Postsocialism in Eastern Europe explores these multifaceted changes and people’s varied experiences of them. The featured narratives complicate hegemonic representations of transformation, revealing ruptures and continuities, progress and reversals.
Everyday Postsocialism in Eastern Europe: History Doesn’t Travel in One Direction will be published as an open access addition to the Purdue University Press series in Central European Studies.
About the Series
The demise of the Communist Bloc and more recent conflicts in the Balkans and Ukraine have exposed the need for greater understanding of the broad stretch of Europe that lies between Germany and Russia. The Central European Studies series enriches our knowledge of the region by producing scholarly work of the highest quality. Since its founding, this has been one of the only English-language series devoted primarily to the lands and peoples of the Habsburg Empire, its successor states, and those areas lying along its immediate periphery. Salient issues such as democratization, censorship, competing national narratives, and the aspirations and treatment of national minorities bear evidence to the continuity between the region’s past and present. The Series Editors are Howard Louthan, University of Minnesota; Daniel L. Unowsky, University of Memphis; Dominique Reill, University of Miami; Paul Hanebrink, Rutgers University; Maureen Healy, Lewis & Clark College; and Nancy M. Wingfield, Northern Illinois University
About the Editors
Jill Massino is an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is the author of Ambiguous Transitions: Gender, the State, and Everyday Life in Socialist and Postsocialist Romania and coeditor of Gender Politics and Everyday Life in State Socialist Eastern and Central Europe.
Markus Wien is professor of European history at the American University in Bulgaria. His publications include Market and Modernization: German-Bulgarian Economic Relations 1918–1944 and Their Conceptual Foundations and numerous articles and book chapters on minorities in Bulgaria, Bulgarian politics, and German development projects in interwar Bulgaria.
Advanced Praise
“This rich examination of ‘real existing postsocialism’ powerfully argues against both triumphal narratives of transition and laments of its failure. Its analysis of how communities navigate uneven temporalities and conflicting historical trajectories also offers crucial context to illuminate the challenges produced by neoliberalism, as well as the recent rise of populism and authoritarianism in the region.” —Maya Nadkarni, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Swarthmore College
“The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 was far from being ‘the end of history.’ On the contrary, the authors in this collection show that history gained new momentum, shaping both events and people alike. Each chapter in this compelling collection demonstrates how diverse individuals, including blue-collar workers, professionals, former communist party members, foreign students, and sexual minorities, navigated the significant shifts brought about by the system’s disintegration. Marking one of the first attempts to historicize the year 1989, the chapters in this volume vividly capture the challenges and complexities of ordinary lives both during and after communism.” —Malgorzata Fidelis, Professor of History, University of Illinois Chicago
Read the Book
You can receive a 30% discount on Everyday Postsocialism in Eastern Europe: History Doesn’t Travel in One Direction and any other Purdue University Press book by ordering directly from our website and using the code PURDUE30 at checkout. Our books are also available through your favorite hometown bookstore, preferred online retailer, or your local library.
Note for Media and Book Reviewers
A digital review copy of this book is available via Edelweiss for librarians, book review bloggers, and journalists. Additional questions about this book may be directed to sales and marketing manager Bryan Shaffer.
About Purdue University Press
Founded in 1960, Purdue University Press is dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information. We publish books in several key subject areas, including Purdue and Indiana history, aeronautics/astronautics, the human-animal bond, Central European studies, Jewish studies, and other select disciplines.
Learn more about Purdue University Press at www.press.purdue.edu.