Útěk od praporů

Durman’s text is a fascinating synthesis of the history of the inner developments as well as the foreign policy of USSR and the Communist bloc from the fall of Khrushchev in 1964 to its virtual end in 1991. This is in many ways a surprising analysis of the errors or miss-interpretations made by the US foreign policy towards the USSR and vice versa. Durman presents a new view on the "Brezhnev Doctrine", "Gorbatchev’s Perestroika" and the crises in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Poland in 1980–1981. The book is written in a graceful, readable style and can be understood not only as an analysis of the Communist Era, but also as an explanation of the causes of the "mysterious" revolutionary year 1989. This monograph of modern history was awarded the dean’s prize of Charles University in Prague in 1998.