Rice historian to discuss updated account of Eastern European transition at Oct. 25 Baker Institute lecture

Franz Brotzen
713-348-6775
franz.brotzen@rice.edu

Rice historian Gale Stokes will discuss the updated version of his landmark book on the political tumult that shook Eastern Europe after 1989, “The Walls Came Tumbling Down,” at an Oct. 25 lecture at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

Who: Gale Stokes, the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor Emeritus of History at Rice University.

What: Lecture on “The Walls Came Tumbling Down: Collapse and Rebirth in Eastern Europe.”

When: 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 25.

Where: Rice University, Baker Hall’s Kelly International Conference Facility, 6100 Main St.

In “The Walls Came Tumbling Down,” Stokes offers one of the most respected interpretations of the East European revolutions of the 1980s. The book provides a sweeping narrative of the two decades of developments that led from the Prague Spring of 1968 to the collapse of communism in 1989.

In this second edition, now subtitled “Collapse and Rebirth in Eastern Europe,” Stokes has revised portions of the book in light of recent scholarship. Three new chapters covering the postcommunist period have been added, including analyses of the German unification and the collapse of the Soviet Union, narratives recounting the admission of many of the region’s countries to the European Union and discussion of the unfortunate outcomes of the wars of Yugoslav succession in the Western Balkans.

Stokes is the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor Emeritus of History at Rice University, where he specialized in the history of Russia and Eastern Europe, especially the Balkans and Serbia. His two best-known books are “From Stalinism to Pluralism: A Documentary History of Eastern Europe Since 1945” and “The Walls Came Tumbling Down,” which won the Vucinich Prize in 1994. He has served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies and Rice dean of humanities.

The event is by invitation only but open to members of the news media. It will be webcast at http://bakerinstitute.org/events/the-walls-came-tumbling-down-collapse-and-rebirth-in-eastern-europe.

Members of the news media who want to attend should RSVP to Franz Brotzen at franz.brotzen@rice.edu or 713-348-6775.