Imposing, Maintaining, and Tearing Open the Iron Curtain

Imposing, Maintaining, and Tearing Open the Iron Curtain, edited by Mark Kramer and Vít Smetana, consists of cutting-edge essays by distinguished experts who discuss the Cold War in Europe from beginning to end, with a particular focus on the countries that were behind 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.

Introduction By Mark Kramer and Vít Smetana Part 1. Central Europe and the Onset of the Iron Curtain Chapter 1. Stalin, Soviet Policy, and the Establishment of a Communist Bloc in Eastern Europe, 1941-1949 By Mark Kramer Chapter 2. The United States and Eastern Europe, 1943-1948 By Michael F. Hopkins Chapter 3. Concessions or Conviction? Czechoslovakia's Road to the Cold War and the Soviet Bloc By Vít Smetana Chapter 4. Hungary's Role in the Soviet Bloc, 1945-1956 By László Borhi Chapter 5. Stalin, the Split with Yugoslavia, and Soviet-East European Efforts to Reassert Control, 1948-1953 By Mark Kramer Chapter 6. Austria, Germany, and the Cold War, 1945-1955 By Rolf Steininger Chapter 7. Neutrality for Germany or Stabilizing the Eastern Bloc? New Evidence on the Decision-Making Process of the Stalin Note By Peter Ruggenthaler Part 2. The German Question and Intra-Bloc Politics in the Post-Stalin Era Chapter 8. The Berlin Wall: Looking Back on the History of the Wall Twenty Years after Its Fa