Hardcover, 480 pages, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (Jul 2009), ISBN-10: 029785223X, ISBN-13: 978-0297852230. RRP: £18.99.

For more than 40 years after the Second World War the Iron Curtain divided Europe physically, with 300 km of walls and barbed wire fence. Few statesmen, diplomats, soldiers or thinkers imagined these certainties would change in their lifetimes.
At the start of 1989, ten European nations were still Soviet vassal states. By the end of the year, one after another, they had thrown off communism, declared national independence, and embarked on the road to democracy.

One of history’s most brutal empires was on its knees. Poets who had been languishing in jails became vice presidents. When the Berlin Wall fell on a chilly November night it seemed as though the open wounds of the cruel twentieth century would at last begin to heal. An entire way of life was swept away along with a half dozen incompetent, corrupt and at times vicious dictatorships. It happened with little violence, apart from a few days in Romania. Now, twenty years on, Victor Sebestyen reassesses this decisive moment in modern history.

A review of the book, written by Adam Lebor for The Sunday Times, can be read by clicking here.

‘Revolution 1989’ is available in good bookshops and online from Amazon.co.uk, Waterstones.com and Play.com.