This book went to press in the previous decade, in a different geological period of European history, in the almost forgotten circumstances of the late spring of 1989. When it was first sent to me, I read several sections but then put it on one side. Some obscure motive, which might have been prudence, warned me that the autumn of 1989 might not be the right moment to review a book about Eastern Europe. Now, not yet twelve months since the last of these essays was written, it becomes fascinating to read through The Uses of Adversity from cover to cover, and to measure it against the new Europe which is becoming visible beneath the torrents of change.

LRB 8 March 1990 | PDF Download