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To Build a Better World: Choices to End the Cold War and Create a Global Commonwealth
A deeply researched international history and "exemplary study" (New York Times Book Review) of how a divided world ended and our present world was fashioned, as the world drifts toward another great time of choosing.
Two of America's leading scholar-diplomats, Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, have combed sources in several languages, interviewed leading figures, and drawn on their own firsthand experience to bring to life the choices that molded the contemporary world. Zeroing in on the key moments of decision, the might-have-beens, and the human beings working through them, they explore both what happened and what could have happened, to show how one world ended and another took form. Beginning in the late 1970s and carrying into the present, they focus on the momentous period between 1988 and 1992, when an entire world system changed, states broke apart, and societies were transformed. Such periods have always been accompanied by terrible wars -- but not this time.
This is also a story of individuals coping with uncertainty. They voice their hopes and fears. They try out desperate improvisations and careful designs. These were leaders who grew up in a "postwar" world, who tried to fashion something better, more peaceful, more prosperous, than the damaged, divided world in which they had come of age. New problems are putting their choices, and the world they made, back on the operating table. It is time to recall not only why they made their choices, but also just how great nations can step up to great challenges.
Timed for the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, To Build a Better World is an authoritative depiction of contemporary statecraft. It lets readers in on the strategies and negotiations, nerve-racking risks, last-minute decisions, and deep deliberations behind the dramas that changed the face of Europe -- and the world -- forever.
Two of America's leading scholar-diplomats, Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, have combed sources in several languages, interviewed leading figures, and drawn on their own firsthand experience to bring to life the choices that molded the contemporary world. Zeroing in on the key moments of decision, the might-have-beens, and the human beings working through them, they explore both what happened and what could have happened, to show how one world ended and another took form. Beginning in the late 1970s and carrying into the present, they focus on the momentous period between 1988 and 1992, when an entire world system changed, states broke apart, and societies were transformed. Such periods have always been accompanied by terrible wars -- but not this time.
This is also a story of individuals coping with uncertainty. They voice their hopes and fears. They try out desperate improvisations and careful designs. These were leaders who grew up in a "postwar" world, who tried to fashion something better, more peaceful, more prosperous, than the damaged, divided world in which they had come of age. New problems are putting their choices, and the world they made, back on the operating table. It is time to recall not only why they made their choices, but also just how great nations can step up to great challenges.
Timed for the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, To Build a Better World is an authoritative depiction of contemporary statecraft. It lets readers in on the strategies and negotiations, nerve-racking risks, last-minute decisions, and deep deliberations behind the dramas that changed the face of Europe -- and the world -- forever.
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First published September 10, 2019
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March 8, 2022
Summary: An account of the period from 1988-1992 and the transition of states, economic systems, and military alliances, reflecting an emerging post-cold war world.
When I bought this book, there was not a war in eastern Europe. All the world was thinking about a few months ago was get past a two-year pandemic. Life has changed and once again we live under the shadow of a potential global war.
Perhaps that sets in relief those few heady years at the end of the 1980’s when we thought we had entered a new world of global peace with the fall of physical and political walls between eastern and western Europe, when the major powers talked about reducing nuclear arms stockpiles and conventional forces, when Germany was unified, when former Warsaw pact countries gained their independence (including Ukraine in 1990) and more peaceable and mutually economically beneficial relations became a possibility with Russia.
This book traces the series of events that unfolded during those years, the issues that the U.S. and other powers faced, and the decisions made that have shaped Europe over the last thirty years, as well as the course of Russia. Rice and Zelikow were insiders during this era, working in both Bush adminstrations, Rice serving as an NSC adviser and eventually, as secretary of state.
The account begins with the increasing globalization of economic systems, the growing strains on the economic systems of the USSR and its satellites in eastern Europe. Amid this comes the bold attempt of Perestroika with not enough economic reforms with too many raised expectations. At first, the effort was to try to figure out how to prop up the system, as it became increasingly apparent that Gorbachev could fail.
As satellites broke away, the question became what would Europe become. Would the European Union expand to include these countries. And what would become of East Germany? The book takes us inside the delicate balance that had to be struck to not humiliate or antagonize the USSR, and to not arouse fears of a united Germany. And how might Russia be integrated into the new Europe.
And what would become of NATO, forged as a post-war threat by the Soviet Union and paralleled by the Warsaw Pact countries. At first, it was even considered to maintain these alignments with a de-escalation of the military presence. When this was unacceptable to the Warsaw Pact countries and interest was expressed in expanding the NATO alliance, the question became, how would Russia react. At one point, the door was even opened for Russia to also be a part of NATO.
What did happen was the expansion of the number of countries in the alliance, but a military de-escalation and recalibration of the mission of NATO, eventually joining the US in both peace-keeping and military missions in the Balkans and the Middle East. Nuclear stockpiles were destroyed without nukes proliferating to former Soviet satellites. Interlocking European and global trade agreements fostered trade. There was a period where US, Europe, and Russia even stood together against Iraq in Kuwait, and later in the fight against Al-Qaeda in the early 2000’s.
At the beginning of the book, we are introduced to a young East German physical chemist who became interested in the changing politics of her country and a young mid-level KGB colonel in Dresden who was increasingly disturbed with the course of events in his home country. The first was Angela Merkel, the second Vladimir Putin. She represented the culmination of the many positive decisions made in those heady years, leading a German renaissance in a new Europe. He represented the lingering humiliation and resentments (despite George H. W. Bush’s understated diplomatic efforts) at the eviscerating of Russian greatness. Putin resented the effort of the second Bush administration to define the world as those for and against freedom. Russia had been at its best under autocrats which he increasingly became. Ukraine, which Putin stated in 2008 was not even a country, resented efforts to incorporate Ukraine into the EU and NATO, blocked by Germany in 2008. Even then, Putin saw this as a US attempt to push an integrated Europe right up to Russia’s doorstep, or underbelly.
This work was published in 2019, which was after the Russian annexation of the Crimea. Even then, the tensions in Ukraine’s eastern provinces were evident. None of this justifies the brutal invasion of Ukraine. Rather it makes evident that the storm clouds were gathering that would unravel the European peace established in the 1990’s. This book casts light on the developments of those years. One gets a sense of what it was like to face issues with multiple choices without a roadmap to show to where these would lead. The thing that stood out was the failure of finding a way to integrate Russia into the integrated Europe without diminishing its sense of national greatness or compromising the independence of other countries. It was the flaw in an otherwise fruitful approach to the opportunities of a new Europe. This was a fascinating, inside account of the opportunities and uncertainties latent in global diplomacy.
When I bought this book, there was not a war in eastern Europe. All the world was thinking about a few months ago was get past a two-year pandemic. Life has changed and once again we live under the shadow of a potential global war.
Perhaps that sets in relief those few heady years at the end of the 1980’s when we thought we had entered a new world of global peace with the fall of physical and political walls between eastern and western Europe, when the major powers talked about reducing nuclear arms stockpiles and conventional forces, when Germany was unified, when former Warsaw pact countries gained their independence (including Ukraine in 1990) and more peaceable and mutually economically beneficial relations became a possibility with Russia.
This book traces the series of events that unfolded during those years, the issues that the U.S. and other powers faced, and the decisions made that have shaped Europe over the last thirty years, as well as the course of Russia. Rice and Zelikow were insiders during this era, working in both Bush adminstrations, Rice serving as an NSC adviser and eventually, as secretary of state.
The account begins with the increasing globalization of economic systems, the growing strains on the economic systems of the USSR and its satellites in eastern Europe. Amid this comes the bold attempt of Perestroika with not enough economic reforms with too many raised expectations. At first, the effort was to try to figure out how to prop up the system, as it became increasingly apparent that Gorbachev could fail.
As satellites broke away, the question became what would Europe become. Would the European Union expand to include these countries. And what would become of East Germany? The book takes us inside the delicate balance that had to be struck to not humiliate or antagonize the USSR, and to not arouse fears of a united Germany. And how might Russia be integrated into the new Europe.
And what would become of NATO, forged as a post-war threat by the Soviet Union and paralleled by the Warsaw Pact countries. At first, it was even considered to maintain these alignments with a de-escalation of the military presence. When this was unacceptable to the Warsaw Pact countries and interest was expressed in expanding the NATO alliance, the question became, how would Russia react. At one point, the door was even opened for Russia to also be a part of NATO.
What did happen was the expansion of the number of countries in the alliance, but a military de-escalation and recalibration of the mission of NATO, eventually joining the US in both peace-keeping and military missions in the Balkans and the Middle East. Nuclear stockpiles were destroyed without nukes proliferating to former Soviet satellites. Interlocking European and global trade agreements fostered trade. There was a period where US, Europe, and Russia even stood together against Iraq in Kuwait, and later in the fight against Al-Qaeda in the early 2000’s.
At the beginning of the book, we are introduced to a young East German physical chemist who became interested in the changing politics of her country and a young mid-level KGB colonel in Dresden who was increasingly disturbed with the course of events in his home country. The first was Angela Merkel, the second Vladimir Putin. She represented the culmination of the many positive decisions made in those heady years, leading a German renaissance in a new Europe. He represented the lingering humiliation and resentments (despite George H. W. Bush’s understated diplomatic efforts) at the eviscerating of Russian greatness. Putin resented the effort of the second Bush administration to define the world as those for and against freedom. Russia had been at its best under autocrats which he increasingly became. Ukraine, which Putin stated in 2008 was not even a country, resented efforts to incorporate Ukraine into the EU and NATO, blocked by Germany in 2008. Even then, Putin saw this as a US attempt to push an integrated Europe right up to Russia’s doorstep, or underbelly.
This work was published in 2019, which was after the Russian annexation of the Crimea. Even then, the tensions in Ukraine’s eastern provinces were evident. None of this justifies the brutal invasion of Ukraine. Rather it makes evident that the storm clouds were gathering that would unravel the European peace established in the 1990’s. This book casts light on the developments of those years. One gets a sense of what it was like to face issues with multiple choices without a roadmap to show to where these would lead. The thing that stood out was the failure of finding a way to integrate Russia into the integrated Europe without diminishing its sense of national greatness or compromising the independence of other countries. It was the flaw in an otherwise fruitful approach to the opportunities of a new Europe. This was a fascinating, inside account of the opportunities and uncertainties latent in global diplomacy.
August 1, 2020
1989-1991 was a hugely transitional period for Europe and international politics. I lived through it, and thought I was a pretty savvy and informed teen, but I was unaware of all but the most obvious events of these pivotal years. Condoleeza Rice and Philip Zelikow, on the other hand, were part of George Bush Sr's State Department team, and brought their academic backgrounds and incredible minds to the table as the United States sought to be a leader and policy maker in the New European Order.
So what happened in these years that was so pivotal? The Cold War had simmered for decades, with Communism and Capitalism grappling in the ring, each trying to assert dominance as the more successful system. By the late '80s the USSR and Warsaw Pact countries had exhausted their credit, borrowing money to afford pseudo-Western lifestyles despite GDPs that either couldn't support the spending, or that were channeled entirely into military buildup. 1989's revolutionary governmental change came first to Poland, then in quick succession to Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and East Germany. The biggest headline came with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and then in the next couple of years the breakup of the Soviet Union. Before 1989 power in Europe was tentatively balanced between the NATO Allies and the Warsaw Pact (basically what my cohorts called "Behind the Iron Curtain"), but as all these countries threw off the communist yoke and experimented with market reform and forms of democracy, this stasis was catastrophically disrupted. How could Europe find a new balance?
And that is what To Build a Better World is all about. As I began reading I wasn't sure my enthusiasm for the book would continue, because the writing is a bit on the dry side (Rice and Zelikow are policy people, not literary artists), and full of details. But I was completely pulled in to the drama of the European diplomatic stage. I remember buying into the idea that George H.W. Bush was a "wimp," though after reading about his intense negotiating with Gorbachev, Thatcher, Kohl, Mitterand, and others, I don't understand how that sobriquet came into being. Historians will be much kinder to him than the contemporary media and his political enemies, because he and his team and the other Western world leaders pulled off the reunification of Germany as a western-style democracy with full NATO membership, in the face of Soviet and East German plans that were pulling in an entirely different direction. They got Gorbachev to agree to all sorts of weapons reductions, all without toppling this perestroika reformer from power in a skeptical Russia. And then once the Soviet Union broke up into Yeltsin's Russia and the discordant republics, they haggled their way through Russia's strong-arming in Lithuania, through the Baltic Republics joining NATO, and then faced the challenge of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait with a united European and North American response. Rice and Zelikow walk us through all this, even inserting "policy papers" into the narrative, showing the range of possibilities the leadership was talking about as they hashed out these issues. Honestly, I ate it up.
The book's final chapter moves beyond this promising diplomatic story and looks at the new problems of the 2010s. After the financial crisis of 2008-9, America's protracted military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Syrian Civil War and resulting migration crisis, and all the new issues that have come with the rise of China, things have changed and new issues emerged. Populism has brought in new governments in continental Europe, Brexit in the UK, and the election of Donald Trump in the United States. And now (following the publication of this book) the COVID-19 pandemic has caused more seismic shock in the world order. What comes next, and are today's leaders competent to make these decisions and shepherd us through the current crossroad?
4.25 stars. It would have been a 4.5 if the writing were as dynamic as the subject matter. I also recognize that the authors, being part of the administration during the concerned time period, are biased in favor of their own actions and decisions, and perhaps give more credit to the United States than would other concerned parties. They do try to bring in where their personal views may have differed from official positions, but it's difficult to approach the topic with neutrality. Anyway, I learned so much that I am riding an intellectual high - like a marathon runner pumped on adrenaline. I only wish I could retain all this information!
So what happened in these years that was so pivotal? The Cold War had simmered for decades, with Communism and Capitalism grappling in the ring, each trying to assert dominance as the more successful system. By the late '80s the USSR and Warsaw Pact countries had exhausted their credit, borrowing money to afford pseudo-Western lifestyles despite GDPs that either couldn't support the spending, or that were channeled entirely into military buildup. 1989's revolutionary governmental change came first to Poland, then in quick succession to Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and East Germany. The biggest headline came with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and then in the next couple of years the breakup of the Soviet Union. Before 1989 power in Europe was tentatively balanced between the NATO Allies and the Warsaw Pact (basically what my cohorts called "Behind the Iron Curtain"), but as all these countries threw off the communist yoke and experimented with market reform and forms of democracy, this stasis was catastrophically disrupted. How could Europe find a new balance?
And that is what To Build a Better World is all about. As I began reading I wasn't sure my enthusiasm for the book would continue, because the writing is a bit on the dry side (Rice and Zelikow are policy people, not literary artists), and full of details. But I was completely pulled in to the drama of the European diplomatic stage. I remember buying into the idea that George H.W. Bush was a "wimp," though after reading about his intense negotiating with Gorbachev, Thatcher, Kohl, Mitterand, and others, I don't understand how that sobriquet came into being. Historians will be much kinder to him than the contemporary media and his political enemies, because he and his team and the other Western world leaders pulled off the reunification of Germany as a western-style democracy with full NATO membership, in the face of Soviet and East German plans that were pulling in an entirely different direction. They got Gorbachev to agree to all sorts of weapons reductions, all without toppling this perestroika reformer from power in a skeptical Russia. And then once the Soviet Union broke up into Yeltsin's Russia and the discordant republics, they haggled their way through Russia's strong-arming in Lithuania, through the Baltic Republics joining NATO, and then faced the challenge of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait with a united European and North American response. Rice and Zelikow walk us through all this, even inserting "policy papers" into the narrative, showing the range of possibilities the leadership was talking about as they hashed out these issues. Honestly, I ate it up.
The book's final chapter moves beyond this promising diplomatic story and looks at the new problems of the 2010s. After the financial crisis of 2008-9, America's protracted military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Syrian Civil War and resulting migration crisis, and all the new issues that have come with the rise of China, things have changed and new issues emerged. Populism has brought in new governments in continental Europe, Brexit in the UK, and the election of Donald Trump in the United States. And now (following the publication of this book) the COVID-19 pandemic has caused more seismic shock in the world order. What comes next, and are today's leaders competent to make these decisions and shepherd us through the current crossroad?
4.25 stars. It would have been a 4.5 if the writing were as dynamic as the subject matter. I also recognize that the authors, being part of the administration during the concerned time period, are biased in favor of their own actions and decisions, and perhaps give more credit to the United States than would other concerned parties. They do try to bring in where their personal views may have differed from official positions, but it's difficult to approach the topic with neutrality. Anyway, I learned so much that I am riding an intellectual high - like a marathon runner pumped on adrenaline. I only wish I could retain all this information!
February 25, 2020
Narrator Arthur Morey superb performance brings this complicated historical, political, and economic study to the ears of listeners.
The authors study the roots of the European Union from 1988 to the fall of the Berlin Wall and well beyond, with this current update including events through 2019.
If you want to know more about how Russia, the US, and European nations evolved during the Cold War to unite to bring peace and prosperity throughout Europe, read this book. You'll gain insight into political players including President Bush (the first), Reagan, Putin and Gorbachev, Angela Merkel, and others. By the conclusion, you'll understand how the world is interconnected and why a change in major power affects us all.
For a description of the performance, see AudioFile Magazine http://www.audiofilemagazine.com
The authors study the roots of the European Union from 1988 to the fall of the Berlin Wall and well beyond, with this current update including events through 2019.
If you want to know more about how Russia, the US, and European nations evolved during the Cold War to unite to bring peace and prosperity throughout Europe, read this book. You'll gain insight into political players including President Bush (the first), Reagan, Putin and Gorbachev, Angela Merkel, and others. By the conclusion, you'll understand how the world is interconnected and why a change in major power affects us all.
For a description of the performance, see AudioFile Magazine http://www.audiofilemagazine.com
November 23, 2022
It's a four for maintaining interest, but a five for important details and measured judgements that would be VERY difficult to get elsewhere. I only heard one typo in the entire book ("descendant" and "ancestor" were reversed, though it was obvious what the authors meant), which, given how source-heavy it is and how many revisions it has gone through, was impressive.
The economic backgrounds and choices in all of this are not stinted at all, and cultural concerns are given due respect, which makes this VERY unusual for a work aimed at well-read laymen and fair-minded academics. The focus on economics makes perfect sense because it is the economics, and the resultant immorality of the socialist economies even when they weren't being genocidal, that made the Soviet imperium collapse, and it also makes the Soviet Chinese contrast far more explicable.
My only other quibble with the book is one made deliberately by Zelikow and Rice, to call hard-line Communists "conservatives" or "reactionaries", and it has to do with the book's focus on academics, politicians, and journalists, but mostly academics. Now,. for any student of European history or of political philosophy, calling more-Leninist and more socialist actors "conservative" is insane, unless perhaps one is comparing them to advocates of "permanent revolution" (though many were) or certain types of anarchists. But politically, in an academe still dominated by anti-anti-Communists at best (think John LeCarre types who like to say there's no difference really between genocidal Commies or Islamists and security minded wester intelligence operatives in order to highlight how subtle and smart they are to themselves and their admirers - to which I respond "ain't no fool like an educated fool", obsessing about the trees, which are important, tothe point of missing the forest), and calling those who talked like them about the evils of capitalism and whatnot "rightist" and "conservative" allows such people to be more comfortable hoping for the success of their enemies. See also the "revolutions" of 1989, and 1992 instead of the "counter-revolutions", even though the uprisings were pushed by people who wanted to at least partly return to the pre-Communist status quo, in the Baltic states restoring the governments in exile displaced by the Communist Nazi alliance in 1939, and in Tiananmen Square restoring Sun Yat Sen's vision fo the Republic, which pre-dates the Guomindang's.
That out of the way, it's a very valuable and occasionally gripping book. Finance types might prefer sections I do not, and Anglophiles like myself might cringe at the temporary displacement of the Anglo-American duopoly with the Franco-Germano-American concord during the creation of the EU, the measured and mercifully and miraculously bloodless collapse of European Communism, and the expansion of NATO. Insight into Chinese growth, Western China policy, the roots of populism in the West, Obama's frustration with European geopolitical incompetence and inability to stand up without constant American military support, and even Victor Orban's choices, which the authors surely regard as the opposite of Mitterand's (Mitterand started as a nasty Commie allied statist and ended up as a reluctant acceptor and liberator of markets and strong Western security structures, though he was never a Chinese style blood-soaked tyrant).
It is also very heavily German and Russian centered, beginning with biographies of the woman who became Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin. There's a LOT about Gorbachev, who comes off very well, until the end, and it is true he helped prevent a major bloodbath, even though he may have ordered Soviet troops to fire on peaceful Balts standing in front of radio stations and newspapers, simply singing and certainly dithered away his last chance to erform the Soveit economy and perhaps save the Soviet experiment.
The economic backgrounds and choices in all of this are not stinted at all, and cultural concerns are given due respect, which makes this VERY unusual for a work aimed at well-read laymen and fair-minded academics. The focus on economics makes perfect sense because it is the economics, and the resultant immorality of the socialist economies even when they weren't being genocidal, that made the Soviet imperium collapse, and it also makes the Soviet Chinese contrast far more explicable.
My only other quibble with the book is one made deliberately by Zelikow and Rice, to call hard-line Communists "conservatives" or "reactionaries", and it has to do with the book's focus on academics, politicians, and journalists, but mostly academics. Now,. for any student of European history or of political philosophy, calling more-Leninist and more socialist actors "conservative" is insane, unless perhaps one is comparing them to advocates of "permanent revolution" (though many were) or certain types of anarchists. But politically, in an academe still dominated by anti-anti-Communists at best (think John LeCarre types who like to say there's no difference really between genocidal Commies or Islamists and security minded wester intelligence operatives in order to highlight how subtle and smart they are to themselves and their admirers - to which I respond "ain't no fool like an educated fool", obsessing about the trees, which are important, tothe point of missing the forest), and calling those who talked like them about the evils of capitalism and whatnot "rightist" and "conservative" allows such people to be more comfortable hoping for the success of their enemies. See also the "revolutions" of 1989, and 1992 instead of the "counter-revolutions", even though the uprisings were pushed by people who wanted to at least partly return to the pre-Communist status quo, in the Baltic states restoring the governments in exile displaced by the Communist Nazi alliance in 1939, and in Tiananmen Square restoring Sun Yat Sen's vision fo the Republic, which pre-dates the Guomindang's.
That out of the way, it's a very valuable and occasionally gripping book. Finance types might prefer sections I do not, and Anglophiles like myself might cringe at the temporary displacement of the Anglo-American duopoly with the Franco-Germano-American concord during the creation of the EU, the measured and mercifully and miraculously bloodless collapse of European Communism, and the expansion of NATO. Insight into Chinese growth, Western China policy, the roots of populism in the West, Obama's frustration with European geopolitical incompetence and inability to stand up without constant American military support, and even Victor Orban's choices, which the authors surely regard as the opposite of Mitterand's (Mitterand started as a nasty Commie allied statist and ended up as a reluctant acceptor and liberator of markets and strong Western security structures, though he was never a Chinese style blood-soaked tyrant).
It is also very heavily German and Russian centered, beginning with biographies of the woman who became Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin. There's a LOT about Gorbachev, who comes off very well, until the end, and it is true he helped prevent a major bloodbath, even though he may have ordered Soviet troops to fire on peaceful Balts standing in front of radio stations and newspapers, simply singing and certainly dithered away his last chance to erform the Soveit economy and perhaps save the Soviet experiment.
July 1, 2025
An interesting analysis of a very narrow but extremely important part of history: the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the "unipolar moment." I feel like I read this at the right time: I had just watched "The Lives of Others," an award-winning film about the compromises and sacrifices made by individuals living under communist repression in East Germany (and the defeat of tyranny by common humanity), set in this exact time period.
While Rice and Zelikow introduce new characters to the scene seemingly every other sentence (as many retellings of modern geopolitical events do), this felt like an appropriately nuanced deep-dive into the many issues that American policymakers faced at that point in time. I especially appreciated the vaguely chronological and well-structured approach to these questions: like a good policy memo, the authors methodically and clearly set out the state of play at that point in time, the decisions needed to be made at that critical juncture on specific questions, and the stakes posed by path dependency in a volatile world and fragile peace. After setting out these roadmaps, the authors effectively interrogate each issue in turn, making it very easy to follow their thought process. With the sheer quantity of decisions that the Bush 41 team had to face (on issues from nuclear proliferation to German monetary policy), this was appreciated.
It was additionally interesting to learn more about the characters occupying this phase of history (who knew that Thatcher and Gorbachev were on the same side of opposing German reunification, but Mitterand was the proponent? You'd think that Mitterand, the Frenchman, would be a bit skeptical of the 80 million Germans at his doorstep). I was also interested in the profiles of key figures such as Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Jacques Delor, and Eduard Shevardnadze (wow hard name to spell) who I did not know much about going into this. It's astounding to consider how many issues these politicians faced at the time and the delicate balance they had to navigate, else risk a world with countless Tiananmens, loose nukes all over the former Soviet Union, and the smothering of the nascent EC in its cradle.
While the neocon agenda is clear in the last chapter (last-chapter-ideology-dumps tend to be a pattern in these types of books), I was a bit surprised that Zelikow and Rice didn't add more anecdotal/personal information in this book. While not a memoir, it felt remarkably agnostic (which I appreciated, as the book assigned after this one is just Reagan hagiography) and only showed authorial voice when a controversial decision directly implicated one of the authors.
All in all, a hefty read worth undertaking if you wonder how the EC and its partner institutions were formed and the Berlin Wall (and Soviet Union) fell.
While Rice and Zelikow introduce new characters to the scene seemingly every other sentence (as many retellings of modern geopolitical events do), this felt like an appropriately nuanced deep-dive into the many issues that American policymakers faced at that point in time. I especially appreciated the vaguely chronological and well-structured approach to these questions: like a good policy memo, the authors methodically and clearly set out the state of play at that point in time, the decisions needed to be made at that critical juncture on specific questions, and the stakes posed by path dependency in a volatile world and fragile peace. After setting out these roadmaps, the authors effectively interrogate each issue in turn, making it very easy to follow their thought process. With the sheer quantity of decisions that the Bush 41 team had to face (on issues from nuclear proliferation to German monetary policy), this was appreciated.
It was additionally interesting to learn more about the characters occupying this phase of history (who knew that Thatcher and Gorbachev were on the same side of opposing German reunification, but Mitterand was the proponent? You'd think that Mitterand, the Frenchman, would be a bit skeptical of the 80 million Germans at his doorstep). I was also interested in the profiles of key figures such as Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Jacques Delor, and Eduard Shevardnadze (wow hard name to spell) who I did not know much about going into this. It's astounding to consider how many issues these politicians faced at the time and the delicate balance they had to navigate, else risk a world with countless Tiananmens, loose nukes all over the former Soviet Union, and the smothering of the nascent EC in its cradle.
While the neocon agenda is clear in the last chapter (last-chapter-ideology-dumps tend to be a pattern in these types of books), I was a bit surprised that Zelikow and Rice didn't add more anecdotal/personal information in this book. While not a memoir, it felt remarkably agnostic (which I appreciated, as the book assigned after this one is just Reagan hagiography) and only showed authorial voice when a controversial decision directly implicated one of the authors.
All in all, a hefty read worth undertaking if you wonder how the EC and its partner institutions were formed and the Berlin Wall (and Soviet Union) fell.
June 7, 2025
If you like Condoleeza Rice sitting on your lap teaching you about her spin on International Relations, this is your book.
more spin than you would think
and still somewhat reliable
Hint: It's always a diplomatic success story
........
oh and the Hypeland City reviews
naturally thoughtful and conveniently honest
Zelikow and Rice have drawn on thousands of still-classified documents in the American archives. But their industry has not stopped there: to tell the Soviet and German sides of the story, they consulted the East German and Russian archives and interviewed a host of European leaders. The quality of their writing and the depth of their research ensure that their exemplary study will serve as the starting point for all future work on German foreign policy after the Cold War.
New York Times Book Review
The inside story, what the policymakers thought and did behind the scenes, is recounted by two participants, using interviews and secret documents.. The book] conveys the sweeping changes devised by a handful of leaders and their aides as they sought to capitalize on a rare, momentary acceleration of history. It also captures the candid exchanges among leaders about long-range fundamentals in Europe.
International Herald Tribune
Zelikow and Rice's thoughtful and honest assessment, largely avoiding wonkishness, lays a clear through line from the diplomatic successes of the 1980s and '90s to the political environment of today.
Publishers Weekly
more spin than you would think
and still somewhat reliable
Hint: It's always a diplomatic success story
........
oh and the Hypeland City reviews
naturally thoughtful and conveniently honest
Zelikow and Rice have drawn on thousands of still-classified documents in the American archives. But their industry has not stopped there: to tell the Soviet and German sides of the story, they consulted the East German and Russian archives and interviewed a host of European leaders. The quality of their writing and the depth of their research ensure that their exemplary study will serve as the starting point for all future work on German foreign policy after the Cold War.
New York Times Book Review
The inside story, what the policymakers thought and did behind the scenes, is recounted by two participants, using interviews and secret documents.. The book] conveys the sweeping changes devised by a handful of leaders and their aides as they sought to capitalize on a rare, momentary acceleration of history. It also captures the candid exchanges among leaders about long-range fundamentals in Europe.
International Herald Tribune
Zelikow and Rice's thoughtful and honest assessment, largely avoiding wonkishness, lays a clear through line from the diplomatic successes of the 1980s and '90s to the political environment of today.
Publishers Weekly
January 29, 2024
I feel so dumb finding out what everyone else was doing while I was living my rather small live here in central Ohio--but oh well, things could be worse, right? Which makes me happy that someone out there, in this case, Philip D. Zelikow and Condoleezaa Rice (does her name seem to have too many letters? I mean two e's I can accept, but two z's also?) was paying attention to the world and doing many things to make it better. It all seems to be falling apart now with Russia-Urkraine and Israel-Palestine, but I think the authors and other journalists writing today seem to agree that we had about fifty good years, at least in Europe.
It took me two weeks to read this so it is pretty dense. The authors use a lot of original source material that have become declassified instead of using other authors' books so that is very interesting. Not sure I've read a book before that did this. But of course these two authors were right in the thick of things as events were occurring--Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Merkel, Bush 41, Bush 43, Clinton. These two were in the room when all these conversations were happening so makes this book very worth reading.
It took me two weeks to read this so it is pretty dense. The authors use a lot of original source material that have become declassified instead of using other authors' books so that is very interesting. Not sure I've read a book before that did this. But of course these two authors were right in the thick of things as events were occurring--Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Merkel, Bush 41, Bush 43, Clinton. These two were in the room when all these conversations were happening so makes this book very worth reading.
August 21, 2021
Polished and thoughtful, this work provides a purely political analysis of the great movers and shakers of the world post-Soviet era. The authors are provocative, asking questions and challenging assumptions that are due for a challenge.
The book does lag at times, and spends a little too much time on subjects that interest the authors who lived it but don't hold as much relevance to the grander story, but that is a small complaint in the face of the work and thought that went into it.
The book is primarily a look into the past, and while the authors do express their hopes for the future, they resist the temptation to prophecy, which I appreciated-allowing the lessons from the past to speak for themselves. They also are openly biased in their viewpoints, and do not seek to project a purely neutral perspective, a tactic often frustratingly utilized by political scientists seeking to paint their own ideas as pure and untainted by opinion.
Overall, well worth the read.
The book does lag at times, and spends a little too much time on subjects that interest the authors who lived it but don't hold as much relevance to the grander story, but that is a small complaint in the face of the work and thought that went into it.
The book is primarily a look into the past, and while the authors do express their hopes for the future, they resist the temptation to prophecy, which I appreciated-allowing the lessons from the past to speak for themselves. They also are openly biased in their viewpoints, and do not seek to project a purely neutral perspective, a tactic often frustratingly utilized by political scientists seeking to paint their own ideas as pure and untainted by opinion.
Overall, well worth the read.
August 10, 2020
From the perspective of those who lived the decision-making process during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the authors carefully describe the underlying causes of the massive changes in the communist world of the time. The application to the current era is especially helpful to understand the socialist background of the current political left in the Democratic Party. The book is carefully researched, is first-person eyewitness testimony, and is a commentary on events from those who were involved in making decisions in those events. Well written and very interesting, the authors tell their personal stories of life at the top of the political power pyramid during an incredible time of global change.
March 17, 2024
The interesting thing about this work is that remembering event that transpired in our lifetime with a new and broader perspective.
This account of the end of the Cold War and unification of Germany is an interesting story. There are so many stories simultaneously evolving. It is humbling to realize how much is going on that we don’t realize in the moment.
The choices outlined, in hindsight , beg questions about and sometimes predict current outcomes in today’s foreign relations issues.
Overall, a very informative read, the fact it was written by key player in the events described shows some bias, but not as bad as it could be.
Definitely recommend if you are interested in recent/ current history.
This account of the end of the Cold War and unification of Germany is an interesting story. There are so many stories simultaneously evolving. It is humbling to realize how much is going on that we don’t realize in the moment.
The choices outlined, in hindsight , beg questions about and sometimes predict current outcomes in today’s foreign relations issues.
Overall, a very informative read, the fact it was written by key player in the events described shows some bias, but not as bad as it could be.
Definitely recommend if you are interested in recent/ current history.
August 21, 2020
Unfortunately it read much like a text book. A bit dry so I easily got bored. I hate criticizing it as it does have good content. Probably my fault for jumping around reading and listening to 8 books at a time.
May 14, 2020
A little dry but gives a good background around the fall of the Berlin wall, the breakup of the USSR and what happened to eastern Europe.
June 15, 2020
A well-researched international history and analysis of how a divided world ended and our present world was fashioned as well as a commentary on how the world drifts in today’s times. Great book!
August 10, 2021
4.5 stars. I read this because my husband is reading it for school right now. I learned so much. Moments were a bit draggy and overwritten.
December 26, 2019
I’m sure this is a very well researched and historically accurate book. Unfortunately for me it read like a text book and maybe it was intended to be one. I almost walked away so many times and maybe I should have because I came away looking for the nuggets of knowledge I gained and I have a hard time identifying what those were. The epilogue was my favorite chapter leaving us with some sense of optimism for the future.
October 17, 2019
It's an expansive cast of characters over a long period of time, so this is necessarily complex, but I never got the impression that the authors didn't have a full grasp of the intricacies. I certainly feel more informed, despite or because of their intentional avoidance of clean narrative arcs or definitive cause-and-effect pronouncements. Again, this makes it a difficult read.
November 3, 2019
An excellent book on the years of the end of the Cold War. The most promising years of my generation. There are great learnings for future leaders. The book also emphasizes the necessity of strong relationships between the countries of the “free world”.
Great reading!
Great reading!
December 26, 2019
The book description is accurate and has many interesting insights.
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