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The Year that Changed the World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall, by Michael Meyer
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A riveting, eyewitness account of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War from the Newsweek Bureau Chief in that region at the time. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, many still believe it was the words of President Ronald Regan, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!,” that brought the Cold War to an end. Michael Meyer disagrees, and in this extraordinarily compelling account, explains why. Drawing together breathtakingly vivid, on-the-ground accounts of the rise of Solidarity in Poland, the stealth opening of the Hungarian border, the Velvet Revolution in Prague, and the collapse of the infamous wall in Berlin, Meyer shows how American intransigence contributed little to achieving such world-shaking change. In his reporting from the frontlines of the revolution in Eastern Europe between 1988 and 1992, he interviewed a wide range of local leaders, including VÁclav Havel and Lech Walesa. Meyer’s descriptions of the way their brave stands were decisive in bringing democracy to Eastern Europe provide a crucial refutation of a misunderstanding of history that has been deliberately employed to help push the United States into the intractable conflicts it faces today.
- Sales Rank: #920395 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Scribner
- Published on: 2012-04-07
- Released on: 2012-04-07
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .90" w x 6.00" l, .66 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 272 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
Review
"The twentieth century ended with a bang in 1989 and Michael Meyer has vividly captured the drama, import and energy of that fascinating year....This is a riveting, rollicking read with many surprises along the way." -- FAREED ZAKARIA, AUTHOR OF "THE POST-AMERICAN WORLD"
"I thoroughly enjoyed "The Year That Changed the World." It is a gripping, colorful account of the rush of events that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet empire. It is also a convincing reappraisal of where credit lies and what lessons should be drawn for U.S. leadership." -- JAMES HOGE, "FOREIGN AFFAIRS"
" A coolheaded reconsideration of the revolutionary fervor that tore down the Iron Curtain in 1989...Meyer skillfully g rasps the crux of these events and ably conveys their remarkable significance. Meyer 'liberates' the record with sagacity, precision and remarkable clarity." -- "KIRKUS REVIEWS" (STARRED REVIEW)
About the Author
Michael Meyer is currently Director of Communications for the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Between 1988 and 1992, he was Newsweek's Bureau Chief for Germany, Central Europe and the Balkans, writing more than twenty cover stories on the break-up of communist Europe and German unification. He is the winner of two Overseas Press Club Awards and appears regularly as a commentator for MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, C-Span, NPR and other broadcast network. He previously worked at the Washington Post and Congressional Quarterly. He is the author of the Alexander Complex (Times Books, 1989), an examination of the psychology of American empire builders. He lives in New York City.
From The Washington Post
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Gerard DeGroot Friedrich Nietzsche once described an argument about history. "I have done that," claims memory. "I cannot have done that," pride retorts. Or, to put it differently: The past is what happened, history what we decide to remember. We mine the past for myths to buttress our present. The good historian is a myth-buster. Michael Meyer is a very good historian. As Newsweek's bureau chief for Eastern Europe in 1989, he watched the world turn on a dime. The myth he busts in this book concerns the contribution the United States made to the collapse of communist regimes that year. Some Americans want to believe that those regimes crumbled because of White House manipulation -- clever diplomacy backed by raw power. In fact, American meddling was rather benign and, during that fateful year, conspicuously ill conceived. The preferred myth begins with Ronald Reagan speaking at the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987. "We hear from Moscow about a new openness," he sneered, demanding proof. "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" According to the myth, the wall came tumbling down because Reagan, like some benevolent wizard, shouted "open sesame!" The moral drawn is that evil, dictatorial regimes crumble when confronted by righteous indignation. Cue Saddam Hussein. George W. Bush, who idolized Reagan, tried to emulate his hero. His distortion of the past inspired tragedy in the present. The real story, minus the comic book hero, is more complicated -- and interesting. Reagan still plays a role, but as diplomat, not Rambo. His contribution came in accommodation; his willingness to talk to Gorbachev gave the Soviet leader the confidence to break molds. Gorbachev, furthermore, did not tear down the wall; he merely suggested that change would be tolerated. The events themselves were played out by a cast of thousands in Budapest, Berlin, Prague, Warsaw and Bucharest. There was no script; this was an improvisational drama conceived by Camus, with help from Kafka and Molière. The Soviet Union came to the realization that its empire was no longer affordable. Like other imperial powers, it cut and ran, leaving colonial subjects to sort things out for themselves. Chaos naturally resulted. Hidden deep in this brilliant book is the perfect phrase: Events were shaped by "the logic of human messiness." The regimes in Eastern Europe were destroyed not by monolithic force, but by myriad human beings reacting impulsively to the freedom of possibility. Watching from afar, we saw what seemed like neat little dominoes falling. In fact, what happened was as capricious, and messy, as a tornado. Chance played a huge part. Meyer points out, for instance, that the "fall" of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, was an accident. It all started when Hungary unilaterally decided to open its border with Austria, thus offering East Germans an opportunity to join their cousins in the West by taking the long way around. Tens of thousands departed every day. With his country bleeding to death, East German leader Egon Krenz recklessly decided to grant freedom of travel, the logic being that if movement was not forbidden, his people would return. The policy was to be implemented "ab sofort" -- "immediately." Krenz's "immediately" meant the next day, in controlled fashion. The East German people took "sofort" to mean "now." They converged on Checkpoint Charlie that night. A frightened border guard, lacking guidance, waited a few hours and then opened the sluice gates to a torrent of humanity. In an instant the wall fell, and so, too, did the logic of East Germany. What was supposed to have been managed reform became instead a chaotic revolution of people walking. Krenz, who had hoped to salvage some elements of socialism, lost control of events when Easterners crossed to the other side. History pivoted on the misinterpretation of a word. Krenz called it a "botch." "Our leaders all wear a uniform mask and declare identical phrases," the Czech dissident Vaclav Havel told Meyer in October 1989. "Perhaps at the moment of history, the masks will fall, and it is only at that moment that we know who is who. . . . We may be surprised to find that the masks concealed an intelligent face." Meyer unmasks some intelligent faces, unlikely heroes who, at the moment of history, acted wisely. Chief among them was Hungarian Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth, a communist who decided that communism did not work and quietly conspired to destroy it. In contrast to Czechoslovakia and East Germany, Hungary's revolution was a coup carried out by a few sensible men. My students would call this a "friendly" book. Meyer recounts momentous events in an accessible, engaging and intensely dramatic way. I had occasionally to remind myself that I was reading nonfiction; history is seldom written with such verve. The book is a two-for-one deal: a fine piece of analysis and a fascinating personal memoir. Added as a bonus are some poignant lessons: Dialogue often beats force, and heroes are sometimes quiet.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
Most helpful customer reviews
31 of 34 people found the following review helpful.
The European Origins of 1989
By Gloves Donahue
More than anything else, Michael Meyer seeks to challenge the perception that the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989 primarily due to the policies of the United States and Ronald Reagan. Meyer, a former Newsweek correspondent who reported on the demise of Communism throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, concentrates on the domestic resistance movements that blossomed behind the Iron Curtain. As a result, dissidents such as Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa feature prominently in his account. However, no one receives more credit for the destruction of the Eastern bloc than Miklos Nemeth.
Nemeth, the Communist prime minister of Hungary who inaugurated a wave of reforms after coming to office in November 1988, made the fateful decision to remove the fence between his country and Austria in the summer of 1989. This move -- which is fittingly characterized by Meyer as pulling the plug out of a sink of water -- facilitated the movement of thousands of East Germans from their country to freedom in the West. Indeed, the discussion of Nemeth is one of the great strengths of the book. Meyer explains how the prime minister and several of his closest associates hoped to make Hungary the first of the eastern bloc nations to remove the Communist Party from power. This, these reformers believed, would allow Hungary to benefit from generous subsidies, credits, and other aid from the West. This plan, of course, did not proceed quite the way these men intended, since Communism collapsed so quickly and completely in only a few months. Thus, Hungary's "head-start" into the West was nullified, and instead the West focused most of its attention on the much more dramatic events of East Germany.
There will be those that disagree with Meyer's interpretation of these events, yet Meyer himself notes that his view was shaped by his time watching (and sometimes participating) in the events in Eastern Europe. Moreover, it is hard to deny that nationalism played a critical role in the events of 1989. Poles, Hungarians, Germans, Czechs, and Slovaks from all walks of life made the conscious decision to defy the authority of the dictatorships that ruled their countries. These decisions were not to be taken lightly, and Meyer occasionally mentions the grave consequences that might result from these actions. Nowhere was this more true than in the last domino to fall: Romania.
This book also rightly stresses the importance of Mikhail Gorbachev to the events of 1989. The Soviet leader made clear to the gerontocracy dominating Eastern Europe that it could no longer rely on Soviet tanks to maintain control. This policy marked a break with the Brezhnev Doctrine established twenty years earlier with the invasion of Prague in 1968 (and has been called the "Sinatra Doctrine" by some historians who saw this is as an indication that the satellites could do it their own way). Without Soviet support, the leaders of Eastern Europe had to be prepared to pursue the "Tienanmen solution" and open fire on their own people to hold on to power. Meyer's discussion of the October protests in the East German city of Leipzig highlights just how close Eastern Europe came to the spilling of blood in the streets.
My one quibble with this book would be that the focus on 1989 obscures the deeper origins of the internal resistance movements in these countries. It is true that Meyer is not an historian, but a more complete discussion of popular protests (1953 in the GDR; 1956 in Poland and Hungary; 1968 in Czechoslovakia; 1980 in Poland) behind the Iron Curtain would be valuable. There are allusions here to Charter 77 and Solidarity, but their work over several years merits more discussion in explaining how the events of 1989 transpired. Additionally, there were those working in a less formal manner to challenge the Communist Party in these countries, particularly those involved with the Church. These criticisms aside, this is an engaging and entertaining read. And hopefully, it will prompt more interested readers to read further on resistance in Eastern Europe.
20 of 27 people found the following review helpful.
Now I Remember Why I Don't Read Histories Written by Reporters.
By Sean
Meyer begins the book (after a rather rambling section in which he tries, unsuccessfully, to connect his subject to America's current problems) with a description of Reagan's famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate. As someone who was living in Berlin at the time and attended the speech, I can tell you that Meyer makes several errors. For starters, he claims that Reagan was standing in front of the Gate with the Wall visible a hundred yards in the background. Reagan wasn't even a hundred yards from the Gate -- *I* wasn't a hundred yards from the Gate where I was watching from -- and the Wall was between us and the Gate. In fact, the Wall bulged into the West around the Gate, making it much, much closer than the Gate.
Next, Meyer makes the claim that the American flags waved by the crowd had been "planted" by the US embassy. "Planted" is a loaded word. Imagine you're going to a big Fourth of July celebration -- a concert in the park followed by fireworks -- and on your way in you pass a table where people are giving away miniature American flags. Would you say they're planting the flags? Of course not. But that's exactly how the flags were distributed on that day in Berlin.
Then there's Meyer's claim that Berliners were strongly anti-American. Now, I lived in Panama in the early '80s, so I have some idea what it's like when people aren't keen to have Americans around. There was none of that in Berlin. If Meyer wanted to say that Berliners weren't fond of Reagan, that'd be one thing -- though even that, I think, was more pronounced in West Germany proper than Berlin -- but the anti-American claim is over the top.
Finally, I'd like to say something about Meyer's reasoning. At one point he says that the fall of the Berlin Wall could not be the result of historical forces or the weakness of Communism because happenstance played such a large role in events -- i.e., it was miscommunication on the part of an East German official that sent people out to tear down the Wall. This is the fallacy of the excluded middle -- you can have broad historical forces at work, which express themselves through random chance or luck. The fact that happenstance played a role in the way Communism crumbled doesn't mean Communism wouldn't've crumbled, albeit differently, if the situation had been slightly different.
Much of the book deals with the revolutions in other countries of the Warsaw Pact which I don't have first-hand knowledge of, but the errors about Berlin lead me to suspect the accuracy of those parts. But I guess that's what I get for reading a history book by a reporter instead of a reputable historian.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
A miraculous year
By hexe
I read this book in one sitting in a couple of hours,and think it is an absolutely unputdownable must read. A thrilling eye-witness and insider account of the collapse of Communism and the Fall of the Berlin Wall which divided a country and a continent into East and West. I wouldn't at all be surprised if Hollywood snapped up the rights. Life has written an story so unbelievable,so true and unique no scriptwriter can ever concoct. A once in a lifetime true life tale of the fight between good and evil,and the desire for exhilarating feeling that is called freedom. As a Hungarian I was fortunate enough myself to witness this tumultuous and uplifting year. It felt incredible to be a very minute part of it as one of the people, and to see how an entire bloc of nations driven by their desire for freedom, with more than a little help from a few wise men accomplished what was thought to be impossible for decades.
For us,the change was helmed by one man in particular, to whom Mr Meyer dedicates this incredible book,and who emerges as the "hidden hero" of this saga. And that man is no other than our then Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth who is now revealed as secret "Hungarian connection" between East and West,and the driving force behind the transformations and key events which took place in Hungary and other Eastern bloc countries at a breakneck pace. He risked everything, (including his own life) to create a better country for us and a better Europe and world for everyone. I'm so proud that our Harvard educated PM finally gets the credit and recognition he deserves.For, as the author writes, beneath the shy exterior, there was a strong man of steely will and strong convictions who was also a quietly determined and an exceptionally intelligent person. I remember the way he stood up for freedom and peace and spoke out and acted against tyranny,lies,opression,and hatred, showing wisdom, broad-mindedness,sincerity and courage which belied his years All this in a country which was on the brink of ruin and bankruptcy. At that time, at just barely forty years of age he was the youngest PM in the world, which in itself was no mean feat.Faced with the daunting task of putting the economy and the political system right, he refused to become just another grey,obedient,shallow "apparatchik" type of PM and began to work on destroying the Communist party the only way it could be destroyed after the failed events of 1956: from within. Not single-handedly of course, but with fellow local and foreign politicians who shared his views. His enemies tried to engineer his fall, we wanted him to pull through and succeed.Mr Meyer thank you for writing this book and giving Mr Nemeth the recognition he was given all around the world, except here at home. I would say that this book is a must read for everyone here who still has doubts about the crucial role our PM played in bringing about these incredible changes which altered the face of Europe forever. Read and see how the new history of the old continent was "written". This is one book and one year you will never forget. And to the Hungarian protagonist: Mr Nemeth, if you happen to ever read this, thank you for all you've done. You were,and still are amazing.
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