Search results

Can Europe tame the Balkans? This is the question that veteran journalist Elizabeth Pond poses in her timely and absorbing book. With rich detail and penetrating analysis, Pond first sets the scene of the 1990s' wars of Yugoslav succession and the region's yearning to join the European Union zone of peace and prosperity

Relations between the United States and Europe have declined in the early 21st century and are worse than at any time since the 1960s. This book examines the widening gulf and worsening acrimony between the United States and its traditional allies on the European continent

Images of Europe -- Prologue I: the fall of the wall -- Prologue II: Maastricht -- Post-cold war NATO -- Present at the second creation: European Monetary Union -- Present at the rebirth: Poland and Central Europe -- Absent at the rebirth: the Eastern Slavs -- EU "domestic" policy -- EU foreign policy

Beyond the Wall is the first book, in either English or German, to tell the whole story of the extraordinary revolution that demolished the Berlin Wall, ended the Cold war, and tore apart the Soviet regime. Elizabeth Pond, former Moscow and European correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, was an eyewitness to the dramatic events of 1989-92 and to the fifteen years of relations between Germany and Eastern Europe leading up to them. Pond weaves together in riveting prose the strands of events that are usually recounted separately. Rather than looking just at the East German revolt or the process of unification that created a new nation, she traces the interaction of these events and their diplomatic consequences for Europe. Pond shows the political, economic, and social forces at work--leading up to the unification, during the transition process, and in the aftermath. Looking at the European framework, she explains how significantly the European Community and its move toward integration both affected and were affected by German unification. The book contains a wealth of new information form hundreds of interviews with top German and American policymakers, East German Politburo members and average German citizens. It also incorporates up-to-date research on such topics as the Stasi secret police and the midlife crisis of the German left. Pond concludes with an assessment of the roles of the United States and a unified Germany in the new Europe. Calling for a continued partnership between the United States and Germany, who "have come through a common baptism of fire since the fall of the Berlin Wall," Pond casts an optimistic eye toward the future.

As the immediate threat recedes, the oligarchs who once personally financed Ukraine's defence seem to be trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. (Survival / SWP)

Hat Wladimir Putin eingelenkt oder gönnt sich der "Meisterstratege" im Kreml nur eine Ruhepause, um den Westen und die Regierung in Kiew bald aufs Neue auf dem falschen Fuß zu erwischen? Wer auch immer recht behält : die Ukraine steht vor unmöglichen Aufgaben, kann aber auf seine jungen Bürger bauen - und hoffentlich auf die EU. (IP)