Subsequent chapters report on conflicts between east and west Germans over the terms of reunification; a commemoration by the German left of the deaths of leftist martyrs; the bankruptcy of a typewriter factory (which becomes a meditation on the consequences of privatization); a study concerning whether East or West Germans had better sex (my favorite); socialist realism; and debates about rewriting history, in which people argue over which was worse, communism or fascism. In each of these

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... ers she selects a particular happening or argument and expands upon its context in a creative way so as to reveal unexpected meanings. In Part Four, she again uses fictions to discuss the difficulties of political transformation, and in a final chapter she interrogates the relationship between liberal democracy and the free-market capitalism that it empowers. For decades, socialism has been demonized in both western and formerly-communist contexts. Ghodsee sees this ongoing demonization as having toxic political effects, by limiting our vision of possibilities for the future. In her view, our current global predicament demands expanding our vision instead. "To prevent the ascendance of a resurgent right," she argues, "we need to get past our red hangover and recognize the pros and cons of both liberal democracy and state socialism in an effort to promote a system that gives us the best of both" (200). Kristen Ghodsee has taken a risk with this book, but she has already established her scholarly bona fides and can afford to do so. It is a brave book, one that brims with urgency concerning the current state of the world and the possibilities for improving it-possibilities that are enhanced, she believes, by taking the communist experience seriously. In short, she makes the study of eastern Europe, both under socialism and after it, crucial in effort to envisage a more viable future. I agree with her and wish I myself had had the nerve to write something like it.