In Europe since 1989, Philipp Ther measures the consequences of “neoliberal hegemony” from its rise in the 1980s through its peak moment—what the author calls its second, more radical wave around the turn of the millennium—all the way up to its current contestation. Instead of formulating another sharp critique of neoliberalism, the book makes an original attempt to gauge the impact of liberalization, deregulation, and privatization policies on various societies, groups, regions, and cities. By focusing primarily on East Central European developments in their broader context, Ther offers a stark alternative to Occidentalist histories of Europe and demonstrates how histories of post-Communist transformation may offer special insights into a crucially important trend in contemporary European history.

Europe since 1989 begins by exploring the making of neoliberal hegemony toward the end of the Cold War before zooming in on the causes, form, and impact of the revolutions in 1989–91. Subsequent chapters analyze the course and results of the post-Communist transformation and the growing differences between and within countries. Various case studies observe the transformation process from above, by looking at the often flexible implementation of neoliberal reform, as well as from below, by comparing regions and cities and considering varied experiences of the everyday. Moreover, Ther inquires how the massive changes in the post-Communist world affected and might even have “co-transformed” Germany and, most recently, southern Europe, offering perceptive diachronic and synchronic comparisons of Poland and Italy, in particular.

The book is intended to be simultaneously a history of a guiding ideology, a chronicle of political changes, a statistics-based coverage of socioeconomic development, and a study of everyday life, all peppered with personal observations and anecdotes. Ther's characterizations of the two major waves of neoliberalism—whereby the original wave of privatizing state-owned enterprises, public services, and utilities was later broadened to include key competences of the welfare state, such as the pension and health-care systems, as well as the introduction of flat-tax regimes—are generally convincing. Europe since 1989 also offers striking surveys of economic macrotrends—Ther speaks of a boom verging on an economic miracle when discussing the exceptionally positive Polish trends—even if these surveys are admittedly based almost exclusively on GDP indicators. On the downside, the analyses of political discourses remain rather impressionistic and the momentous cultural changes of recent decades are not treated in greater depth either. Major areas of current scholarly interest, such as memory and remembrance, gender, nationalism, migration, or the media, receive rather limited attention.

Thus, and despite its seemingly heterogeneous agenda, Europe since 1989 in many ways remains a socioeconomic history packaged for broader consumption, its key merit being that it offers a balanced, though far from uncritical discussion, of neoliberal policies’ socioeconomic consequences. Ther emphasizes that “only a fifth of the populations of postcommunist countries profited from the economic reforms introduced since 1989, while around two-fifths grew poorer” (207) and insists that the success of new market economies depended primarily on their human and social capital and the conditions provided by the state and administrative reforms. What is more, he directly questions whether there was a dual transition from planned to market economy and from dictatorship to democracy in post-Communist countries, suggesting that neoliberal reforms could perhaps only be implemented because they were not yet full-fledged democracies. At the same time, Ther is far from denying popular participation in the making of neoliberal capitalism and agrees that avoiding reforms had worse results than shock therapies (which is not the same as arguing in favor of radical reform).

The book approaches the post-Communist transformation as a renewed attempt at a catch-up modernization with wealth and increased consumption as key goals; one of its central questions is whether East Central European countries have managed to converge toward West European patterns. Ther finds that such trends were visible in the first decade of the twenty-first century and that this was partly due to the abundant spending by the European Union, a large proportion of which flowed into less prosperous regions. However, the crisis of 2008–09 hit precisely those “pioneering” countries the most which had curtailed government intervention, liberalized their markets, and given banks free rein to extend loans even in foreign currencies. It halted the trend toward convergence and revealed the volatility of the order created after 1989—even while it seemingly only reinforced the misfortunate dialectic between technocracy and populism.

Ultimately, what Ther's stimulating and timely book shows is that East Central European countries possessed high levels of human capital, moderate wages and salaries, and strong international support when being integrated into a growing global economy after 1989; nonetheless, their momentous transformation and opening created rather unfavorable conditions to reflect on democratic practices and debating the variety of capitalism.