Description: The post-communist states of Central and Eastern Europe have gone from being among the world's most closed, autarkic economies to among the most export-oriented and globally integrated. Reaching deep into the region's history and focusing on its long-run industrial development, Besnik Pula presents a counter narrative to prevailing narratives that explain this shift.
Review Quotes: "Besnik Pula takes another brick off the massive wall of myths surrounding Central and Eastern Europe by kicking off the pedestal the widely shared view that this region's experience with central planning was autarchic and that industrialization was a pure liability for their turn to capitalism. Instead, Pula's superbly well-researched book shows how the socialist states' rich and complex trade, technological, and institutional interactions with the capitalist West's value and supply chains paved the way for their emergence after 1989 as some of the world's most transnationally integrated economies. This is empirically nuanced, theoretically astute, and context sensitive social science at its best."--Cornel Ban, City "University of London"