Imposing, Maintaining, and Tearing Open the Iron Curtain

Mark Kramer is director of Cold War Studies at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, where he is also a Senior Fellow. Vit Smetana is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Contemporary History of the Czech Republic’s Academy of Sciences and teaches modern international history at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague.

• IntroductionBy Mark Kramer and Vít SmetanaPart 1. Central Europe and the Onset of the Iron CurtainChapter 1. Stalin, Soviet Policy, and the Establishment of a Communist Bloc in Eastern Europe, 1941–1949By Mark KramerChapter 2. The United States and Eastern Europe, 1943–1948By Michael F. HopkinsChapter 3. Concessions or Conviction? Czechoslovakia's Road to the Cold War and the Soviet BlocBy Vít SmetanaChapter 4. Hungary's Role in the Soviet Bloc, 1945–1956By László BorhiChapter 5. Stalin, the Split with Yugoslavia, and Soviet-East European Efforts to Reassert Control, 1948–1953By Mark KramerChapter 6. Austria, Germany, and the Cold War, 1945–1955By Rolf SteiningerChapter 7. Neutrality for Germany or Stabilizing the Eastern Bloc? New Evidence on the Decision-Making Process of the Stalin NoteBy Peter RuggenthalerPart 2. The German Question and Intra-Bloc Politics in the Post-Stalin EraChapter 8. The Berlin Wall: Looking Back on the History of the Wall Twenty Years after Its Fa

The twenty-four articles here . . . do provide impressive coverage of a wide variety of topics. The reader will find studies of great-power relations, accounts of machinations within the Soviet Bloc, old-fashioned foreign policy reviews, and big-picture essays, from many of the leading scholars in the field. . . .The idea underpinning the book is a good one, and the volume will certainly have value as a reference on the Soviet Bloc and its disintegration.