Revealing how the quest for independence and challenges of democratization created a contest between nationalists and Europeanists, two powerful forces in domestic politics, after the collapse of communism, Fisher sheds light on the nationalism and post-communist transitions.

This pathbreaking collection of essays recasts the prevailing conceptions of the historical roots and role of the U.S. Communist Party and its social setting. The contributors focus on the movement that formed around the party and the popular culture it expressed, particularly in the period from 1930 to 1960. They look at the impact of the party and its followers in the areas of education, literature, and the arts, in the African-American community, and on the women's and labor movements. In their preface, the editors place the book in the context of the broader critical examination of the history of the left in the United States. By analyzing the historical reasons for the party's appeal and its relationship to those outside its ranks, the volume contributes to a fuller understanding of the broader societal context within which all oppositional movements are formed. Contributors (in order of appearance in book): Michael E. Brown, Mark Naison, John Gerassi, Stephen Leberstein, Ellen Schrecker, Rosalyn Baxandall, Roger Keeran, Gerald Horne, Annette T. Rubinstein, Marvin E. Gettleman, Alan Wald, and Gil Green (interviewed by Anders Stephanson).

The collapse of communism was one of the most defining moments of the twentieth century. This Very Short Introduction examines the history behind the political, economic, and social structures of communism as an ideology.

It has long been assumed that the historical legacy of Soviet Communism would have an important effect on post-communist states. However, prior research has focused primarily on the institutional legacy of communism. Communism's Shadow instead turns the focus to the individuals who inhabit post-communist countries, presenting a rigorous assessment of the legacy of communism on political attitudes. Post-communist citizens hold political, economic, and social opinions that consistently differ from individuals in other countries. Grigore Pop-Eleches and Joshua Tucker introduce two distinct frameworks to explain these differences, the first of which focuses on the effects of living in a post-communist country, and the second on living through communism. Drawing on large-scale research encompassing post-communist states and other countries around the globe, the authors demonstrate that living through communism has a clear, consistent influence on why citizens in post-communist countries are, on average, less supportive of democracy and markets and more supportive of state-provided social welfare. The longer citizens have lived through communism, especially as adults, the greater their support for beliefs associated with communist ideology—the one exception being opinions regarding gender equality. A thorough and nuanced examination of communist legacies' lasting influence on public opinion, Communism's Shadow highlights the ways in which political beliefs can outlast institutional regimes.

'...erudite, thought-provoking and well-written.'Archie Brown, Professor of Politics, Oxford University. The return to prominence of the concept of political culture offers an opportunity to re-evaluate its contribution to the social sciences. This study casts a broader than usual net, embracing not only political science (with equal emphasis placed on the concept's use in communist studies), but also sociology and history. On this basis a distinctive theory of political culture, and not merely another typology, is developed. Political culture, instead of being a token in the sterile debate between interest- and culture-based explanation, offers the means of transcending that debate.

This book uses surveys, statistics, and case studies to explain why and how cultural norms affect political attitudes and behavior.

China's decade-long Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution shook the politics of China and the world. Even as we approach its fiftieth anniversary, the movement remains so contentious that the Chinese Communist Party still forbids fully open investigation of its origins, development, and conclusion. Drawing upon a vital trove of scholarship, memoirs, and popular culture, this Very Short Introduction illuminates this complex, often obscure, and still controversial movement. Moving beyond the figure of Mao Zedong, Richard Curt Kraus links Beijing's elite politics to broader aspects of society and culture, highlighting many changes in daily life, employment, and the economy. Kraus also situates this very nationalist outburst of Chinese radicalism within a global context, showing that the Cultural Revolution was mirrored in the radical youth movement that swept much of the world, and that had imagined or emotional links to China's red guards. Yet it was also during the Cultural Revolution that China and the United States tempered their long hostility, one of the innovations in this period that sowed the seeds for China's subsequent decades of spectacular economic growth.