Looking at the history of the former USSR and Warsaw pact for example, we see that there is a big difference between a success-story like Estonia, a country at great risk of going towards dictatorship like Hungary, a dictatorship like Russia, or a country with a tough ongoing struggle between oligarchy and democracy like Ukraine.
I'm interested in the conditions that lead to these developments in various directions; what about Estonia made it develop the way it did, and what went wrong in something like Hungary? Proximate causes are often easy to point to, but I'm looking for an analysis that goes into the root cause. Not just a book that points out that Estonia was lucky to have this or that movement when Hungary had a different kind of movement, but one that goes into the underlying structures that lead to different movements developing in different countries. It doesn't have to even be about the former USSR; that's just an example, I'm interested in the mechanics more so than in the particulars.
Another thing that I'm looking for, which could be part of this book or a separate book on it's own, is a non-fiction book on the efficacy of protest. When we talk about the civil rights movement, a lot of attention is paid to the massive protests of that era and their supposed influence. At the same time I see a lot of protest movements seemingly leading to nothing. I would be interested in reading a thorough analysis of how much can really be achieved by public protest, and what makes for a productive public protest that leads to real change, versus protests that die down and lead nowhere.
by PlentyEasy1518
1 Comment
You should have a look at *The Reconstruction of Nations* by Timothy Snyder. Basically, he looks at how countries that had existed, then had lost their sovereignty and then regained it, dealt with the process of becoming independent and dealing with the historical and political issues they grappled with. He looks at Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Belarus. It’s a great book. I learned a lot from it.