This collection of essays edited by George Lawson, Chris Armbruster, and Michael Cox is a smart and interesting book. It brings together a number of disciplinary approaches, all with the goal of understanding the end of the Cold War and its legacy. Given this disciplinary eclecticism, the editors have wisely avoided trying to force some kind of one-size-fits-all argument onto the collection as a whole. Rather, they have divided the chapters loosely into four categories: 1) those concerned with the “what,” or events, of 1989 and their significance; 2) those concerned with the “when,” or historical context and legacy of the events; 3) those concerned with the “where,” or regional impact of events; and 4) those concerned with broader conclusions.

Before proceeding to a detailed summary, it is worth noting that despite the 2010 publication date, this volume arises largely from drafts submitted to a 2008 workshop. As a result, unlike the numerous edited collections that appeared after conferences held on or around the November 2009 twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, contributions to The Global 1989 rely mostly on materials published or released before that workshop. Hence, with a few exceptions, this volume offers a snapshot of scholarly opinion prior to the avalanche of new publications that appeared on or after the twentieth anniversary.

Given the space constraints, it is not possible to address the arguments of every single contributor, and so only a few will be highlighted here. In one of the earlier chapters, William Outhwaite offers some insightful ground rules for assessing the events of 1989. First, he points out that “we must, I think, be impressed by the conjunction of long-term tendencies such as the economic slow-down and the ideological and cultural erosion of the state socialist dictatorships on the one hand, and Gorbachev's initiatives with all their intended and unintended consequences on the other” (p. 77). Next, he suggests that scholars should speak of “the ‘1989 years,’” meaning that they should be aware of both the swift nature of events of that year and the larger context in which they occurred (p. 77). Finally, Outhwaite highlights a commonality to the events of 1989 in disparate locations: “One of the surprises of 1989 was the relative lack of interest in ‘third ways’ between capitalism and socialism, with a distinct preference for more macho forms of capitalism over softer ‘Nordic’ ones” (p. 84).

Subsequent authors examine 1989 in a variety of contexts. In his own contribution, editor Cox examines the legacy of that year for transatlantic relations. The central problem, he argues, was that the Cold War emerged largely from a dichotomy drawn between the transatlantic Western alliance and the Soviet Bloc: “Imagine, thus, the initial confusion caused when the ‘other’ took upon itself a series of changes in its foreign policy which, to paraphrase Mikhail Gorbachev, were designed to remove it from the West's enemy list” (p. 98).

Laure Delcour, in a chapter entitled “Towards a Global Europe?” looks at the end of the Cold War in the context of European integration and the history of the European Union. She challenges the notion that the events of 1989 opened the doors to the smooth progress of further European integration in the post–Cold War era. Rather, the European accords that resulted “have not introduced the institutional changes which would have allowed an efficient functioning of the EU-27” (p. 147). Even worse in her view, European leaders displayed a regrettable “reluctance … to define borders” (p. 151) for the Europe of the future. Concluding that “1989 is arguably a missed opportunity in this respect,” she finds that the definition of Europe's boundaries remains one of the most pressing open items from the end of the Cold War (p. 149).

For his part, Aviezer Tucker examines the legacy of 1989 for Russia and China in comparative perspective. He calls for a reconsideration of the notion that Russia and China parted ways at the end of the Cold War. Rather, Tucker sees in both countries the continued domination of what he labels the “late-totalitarian elite” (p. 161). In his view, “[m]ost, though not all, members of the late-totalitarian elite have maintained their positions in the post-totalitarian elite” (p. 164). The key to understanding the political development in the two countries after 1989 lies in understanding the self-preservation tactics of that elite. As he puts it, the central aspect of the postcommunist transition is “the adjustment of the rights of the late-totalitarian elite to its interests” (p. 161; emphasis in original). The process of adjustment proceeded smoothly in China, excepting only the protest of early 1989. In Russia, however, the transition was more chaotic, and the status quo only emerged with what Tucker terms the “Putin Restoration” (p. 168). He concludes that “1989 was actually more global but less revolutionary than has hitherto been acknowledged. The process of adjustment of rights to interests of the late-totalitarian elite was global, from China through Russia to Central Europe. However, it was gradual rather than disruptive or revolutionary” (p. 178).

Continuing the trend of challenging conventional wisdom, both editor Armbruster and contributor Barbara Falk contest triumphalist narratives, and particularly the American triumphalist narrative, of the end of the Cold War. Armbruster points out that 1989 may be construed as an isolated “bright moment” followed by renewed war and mass killings in Europe (p. 201). Falk laments that Western and particularly American policymakers seem to have learned the wrong lessons from the events of 1989. She argues that the fallacy “that the United States was primarily responsible for the decline and collapse of the Soviet empire” had deleterious effects on American policymakers in the years afterwards (p. 244).

The volume concludes with a fine essay by Odd Arne Westad. He rightly points out that before identifying 1989 as a watershed, it is necessary to establish in which stream it may be a watershed. In Westad's view, there are a number of narrative streams in the Cold War era, some beginning and ending with that conflict, others not. These include the global conflict between communism and capitalism; the modern evolution of ideologies, in which he sees the 1970s and 1980s as the key decades; and the larger story of global structural economic change, characterized by the emergence of “floating currencies, massive changes in productivity and output, and technological transformation [and] new globalized financial markets” (p. 272). Whether or not 1989 was actually a significant watershed depends on the stream that one views as significant.

Westad sees the last stream (global structural economic change) as the most significant, and he argues in particular for the importance of economic change in China as a dominant factor in ending the Cold War. As he puts it, China's gradual abandonment of centralized planning “effectively pull[ed] the rug from under Moscow's pretensions of representing the most advanced form of human development. China, in other words, mattered much more because of its societal and developmental changes than because of its often confused and ill-informed diplomacy and military posturing. And the initiative for these changes came from within, as desperate measures to overcome the disastrous results of Mao Zedong's years of terror and social dislocation” (p. 273).

In summary, while this volume does not offer a unified thesis, its contributors do speak of similar themes: of the importance of the larger spatial and temporal context; of unexpected continuities between the Cold War and post–Cold War period; of missed opportunities. All of these themes contribute to an emerging scholarly understanding of the ongoing legacy of a dramatic year.