Year That Changed the World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Hardcover

Meyer, Michael

4.22

552 ratings by Goodreads

9781847374301: Year That Changed the World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847374301 ISBN 13: 9781847374301

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2009

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'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. In doing so he provides not just a thrilling chronicle of perhaps the most important year of the 20th century but also a crucial refutation of American mythology and a misunderstanding of history that was deliberately employed to lead the United States into some of the intractable conflicts it faces today.

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Review:

"The twentieth century ended with a bang in 1989 and Michael Meyer has vividly captured the drama, import and energy of that fascinating year....This is a riveting, rollicking read with many surprises along the way." -- FAREED ZAKARIA, AUTHOR OF "THE POST-AMERICAN WORLD"

"I thoroughly enjoyed "The Year That Changed the World." It is a gripping, colorful account of the rush of events that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet empire. It is also a convincing reappraisal of where credit lies and what lessons should be drawn for U.S. leadership." -- JAMES HOGE, "FOREIGN AFFAIRS"

" A coolheaded reconsideration of the revolutionary fervor that tore down the Iron Curtain in 1989...Meyer skillfully g rasps the crux of these events and ably conveys their remarkable significance. Meyer 'liberates' the record with sagacity, precision and remarkable clarity." -- "KIRKUS REVIEWS" (STARRED REVIEW)

About the Author:

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.

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