Taking Stock of Shock

<strong>Kristen Ghodsee and Mitchell A. Orenstein blend empirical data with lived experiences to produce a robust picture of who won and who lost in post-communist transition contextualizing the rise of populism in Eastern Europe.</strong> <p/>After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 more than 400 million people suddenly found themselves in a new reality a dramatic transition from state socialist and centrally planned workers' states to liberal democracy (in most cases) and free markets. Thirty years later postsocialist citizens<br>remain sharply divided on the legacies of transition. Was it a success that produced great progress after a short recession or a socio-economic catastrophe foisted on the East by Western capitalists? <em>Taking Stock of Shock</em> aims to uncover the truth using a unique interdisciplinary investigation<br>into the social consequences of transition--including the rise of authoritarian populism and xenophobia. Showing that economic demographic sociological political scientific and ethnographic research produce contradictory results based on different disciplinary methods and data Kristen Ghodsee<br>and Mitchell Orenstein triangulate the results. They find that both the J-curve model which anticipates sustained growth after a sharp downturn and the disaster capitalism perspective which posits that neoliberalism led to devastating outcomes have significant basis in fact. While substantial<br>percentages of the populations across a variety of postsocialist countries enjoyed remarkable success prosperity and progress many others suffered an unprecedented socio-economic catastrophe. Ghodsee and Orenstein conclude that the promise of transition still remains elusive for many and offer<br>policy ideas for overcoming negative social and political consequences.<br>