Post Wall, Post Square. Kristina Spohr

      ‘Kristina Spohr beautifully reconstructs the events of the 1989–92 era, reminding us of the importance of intelligent, responsible political leadership at critical moments of history … Uses recently declassified material in the British, French, German, Russian and US archives … [and] pays deserved tribute also to the “people power” of central and eastern Europe. She mentions not only those who filled the streets of East Berlin and Prague in peaceful demonstrations, but also brave individuals such as Lech Walesa, the earthy, politically astute electrician from Gdansk, who symbolised Poland’s non-violent move to democracy’

       Financial Times

      ‘Sweeping panorama … One of the many strengths of this book is the way Spohr pulls together these stories of befuddled leaders and of the forces they unleashed, wittingly or otherwise, in effect providing a global history … Post Wall, Post Square is free of jargon and filled with insight on the interplay between individual decisions and larger historical forces. The result is a magisterial account of the momentous events of 1989 and the diplomacy that put in place a new global settlement, with a reunified Germany at the heart of an expanded NATO and an enlarged and deepened European Union’

       Times Literary Supplement

      ‘When it comes to the end of the Cold War and creation of the contemporary global commonwealth, few, if any, scholars are more conversant in more sources in more languages than Kristina Spohr. Here she finally brings her knowledge together in a masterly, broad narrative international history of this pivotal time in world history. It is political and diplomatic history in a grand style, done with nice balance, empathy, and an eye for telling detail. It will be one of the standard works on this period for many years to come’

      PHILIP ZELIKOW, co-author of To Build a Better World

      ‘A gripping and compelling account … The peaceful ending of the Cold War between West and East remains one of the greatest achievements of modern statecraft’

      CHRISTOPHER ANDREW, Literary Review

      ‘Reads excellently … Spohr lets the fundamental ideas of her global history emerge from an abundance of colourful and lively miniatures. It is the monumental painting of an impressionist, always hard on the heels of the historical protagonists. Whoever reads this roams the hallways of power in Beijing and Paris, sits opposite Helmut Kohl and Margaret Thatcher … The fact that the big picture is never lost is due to the confident structuring of the facts and the stylistic skills of the author’

       Freie Presse

      ‘Spohr offers a sweeping diplomatic history of the period, showing how the “conservative diplomacy” of leaders like George H.W. Bush and Helmut Kohl helped usher in a peaceful new order, while also exploring how missed opportunities and blind spots created tensions that remain with us today’

       The American Interest

       Dedication

      For my godchildren

      Anna Lisa (*1997)

      Daniel (*2004)

      James (*2007)

      Clio (*2013)

      born into the post-Wall world

       Epigraph

      If 1989 was the year of sweeping away, 1990 must become the year of building anew.

      James A. Baker, 1990

      We don’t care what others say about us. The only thing we really care about is a good environment for developing ourselves. So long as history eventually proves the superiority of the Chinese socialist system, that’s enough.

      Deng Xiaoping, 1989

      France is our homeland, Europe is our future.

      François Mitterrand, 1987

      Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.

      Mikhail Gorbachev, 1991

      Politics needs a sense of the possible, also of what is acceptable to others.

      Helmut Kohl, 2009