- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Princeton University Press (8 Jun 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0691144389
- ISBN-13: 978-0691144382
- Product Dimensions: 15.6 x 23.4 x 1.2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,996,021 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Review
Vladimir Tismanueanu is a prominent essayist and an expert on contemporary policy. He knows everything about Central and Eastern Europe. . .I warmly recommend this book--it is as controversial as it is inspiring.
(Adam Michnik, author of "Letters from Prison", editor of "Wyborcza" (Warsaw) ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
(Adam Michnik, author of "Letters from Prison", editor of "Wyborcza" (Warsaw) ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Product Description
Eastern Europe has become an ideological battleground since the collapse of the Soviet Union, with liberals and authoritarians struggling to seize the ground lost by Marxism. In Fantasies of Salvation, Vladimir Tismaneanu traces the intellectual history of this struggle and warns that authoritarian nationalists pose a serious threat to democratic forces.
A leading observer of the often baffling world of post-Communist Europe, Tismaneanu shows that extreme nationalistic and authoritarian thought has been influential in Eastern Europe for much of this century, while liberalism has only shallow historical roots. Despite democratic successes in places such as the Czech Republic and Poland, he argues, it would be a mistake for the West to assume that liberalism will always triumph. He backs this argument by showing how nationalist intellectuals have encouraged ethnic hatred in such countries as Russia, Romania, and the former Yugoslavia by reviving patriotic myths of heroes, scapegoats, and historical injustices. And he shows how enthusiastically these myths have been welcomed by people desperate for some form of "salvation" from political and economic uncertainty.
On a theoretical level, Tismaneanu challenges the common ideas that the ideological struggle is between "right" and "left" or between "nationalists" and "internationalists." In a careful analysis of the conflict's ideological roots, he argues that it is more useful and historically accurate to view the struggle as between those who embrace the individualist traditions of the Enlightenment and those who reject them.
Tismaneanu himself has been active in the intellectual battles he describes, particularly in his native Romania, and makes insightful use of interviews with key members of the dissident movements of the 1970s and 1980s. He offers original observations of countries from the Baltic to the Black Sea and expresses his ideas in a vivid and forceful style. Fantasies of Salvation is an indispensable book for both academic and nonacademic readers who wish to understand the forces shaping one of the world's most important and unpredictable regions.
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First Sentence
WHAT IS the difference between myth and ideology? Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
WHAT IS the difference between myth and ideology? Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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2 reviews
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Strong integrated analysis of post-socialist politics
30 Sep 2000
Format:Hardcover
"Fantasies of Salvation" is a study of political mythologies and ideologies in the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Tismaneanu takes an integrative approach, rather than engaging in the generally common practice of considering each country separately - something which is quite commendable, and he does a very good job providing an overview of the overall political climate in this region. Even so, he concentrates most of his analysis to the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Romania, while the former Soviet republics and the Balkans are covered less. Generally this book is quite valuable as it covers an area this is not generally dealt with in such a comprehensive manner. Thus, his comparative look at nationalism, anti-communism and the associated political mythologies gives readers an excellent basis for understanding political discourse throughout the region. Tismaneanu correctly points out that mythology is a common aspect of politics anywhere in the world, but his overriding thesis in this work is to show that under the circumstances of rapid transition in the post-socialist countries of Europe, such political mythologies can assume disturbingly paranoid, exclusionary and even violent forms. This is where the term "fantasies of salvation" comes from. Such fantasies are, in the author's words, "an irrational blend but compelling blend" of quasi-religious searches for salvation, egotistic nationalist self-identification and simplified utopian social doctrines. His anaylsis of natonalism in this context is illuminating, and very sobering. He notes that the troubles with economic transition have fanned the flames of xenophobia and racism not only in places like Russia and the Balkans, but even in the more "successful" countries like Hungary or the Czech Republic - although, to be sure, in the latter cases there is less cause for concern than in the former. One can apply the conclusions he draws to other parts of the world as well.
However, the book does have its flaws. One is that Tismaneanu excessively frets over the fate of the former dissidents, like Havel, Konrad or Michnik, who have lost quite a bit of their popularity both in their own countries and abroad. Another (and I believe key) flaw is that while he criticizes many of the political myths or fantasies in the region for, among other things, promoting a simplistic manichean world view, he falls prey to this himself in the sense that he portrays the West, liberalism and the market economy as absolutes which must be attained by all former communist societies. Rarely are the concepts of liberal democracy and capitalism discussed as political myths themselves (regardless of their validity), and Tismaneanu never even entertains the notion that grafting such idealized concepts onto the post-socialist societies may be yet another cause for their often staggering economic and social problems. This really takes away from some of the top-notch analysis in this book, for at times it seems less of a scholarly work than an ideological tract.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Back to the prehistory!
12 Jan 2007
Format:Hardcover
There are two kinds of analphabets: those who don't know read, and those who don't read.
When the moral disarray of individuals - due the absence of a centered spirit - in times of crisis, multiple changes, exigent challenges, temporal paradigms, perpetual uncertainness and historical fracture, the sociological behavior in most societies seem to follow a same pattern: to search desperately an exit door based on emotional coordinates. This is an extraordinary chance for the false prophets or pretended liberators, illuminated and inspired by supernatural forces to return in order to support those anguishing souls, the coveted serenity and a beacon in the darkness of the ignorance; but when this happens, many people - emulating Faust figure - are capable to renounce the freedom - our most valuable gift - in search of shelter and comfort.
Tismaneau explores with vehement logic, the political psychology of post communist societies and the emerging nations who have grown and grown up overlooking the history.
Kind reader, go for Matrix and search that admirable sequence in which literally appears that devastating statement: "Happiness is ignorance."
There are issues we forget due believe them unthinkable to happen.
When the moral disarray of individuals - due the absence of a centered spirit - in times of crisis, multiple changes, exigent challenges, temporal paradigms, perpetual uncertainness and historical fracture, the sociological behavior in most societies seem to follow a same pattern: to search desperately an exit door based on emotional coordinates. This is an extraordinary chance for the false prophets or pretended liberators, illuminated and inspired by supernatural forces to return in order to support those anguishing souls, the coveted serenity and a beacon in the darkness of the ignorance; but when this happens, many people - emulating Faust figure - are capable to renounce the freedom - our most valuable gift - in search of shelter and comfort.
Tismaneau explores with vehement logic, the political psychology of post communist societies and the emerging nations who have grown and grown up overlooking the history.
Kind reader, go for Matrix and search that admirable sequence in which literally appears that devastating statement: "Happiness is ignorance."
There are issues we forget due believe them unthinkable to happen.
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