Press release: 26.9.2014

The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 signalled the start of a massive continental experiment. Within a short space of time the former “Eastern Bloc” countries were reshaped in the neoliberal mould and subjected to the regime of privatisation and liberalisation. Philipp Ther was in Prague when the people took to the streets. Later he spent many years in the Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine. In his book he provides a contemporary analysis of the new order in the old continent, examining the subject matter for the first time from a pan-European perspective. Ther reviews the course of the "negotiated revolutions", supplementing the narrative with his own personal experience. He shows how the restructuring of the central and eastern European economies also impacted upon countries in the West. He interprets the labour market reforms of the SPD-Green federal coalition government in Germany, for instance, as “catch-up modernisation”. In his book, Philipp Ther clears up a number of myths which grew up around “1989” and poses questions which will provide for widespread discussion: What worked better - radical shock therapy or gradual reform? What lessons can be learned with regard to the current crisis in the southern European economies? And why has Berlin been overtaken economically by cities such as Warsaw and Prague?

Philipp Ther: “Die Neue Ordnung auf dem alten Kontinent – Eine Geschichte des neoliberalen Europa”

Book presentation and interview
Hosted by: Andreas F. Rook, Journalist (MDR), 4 October 2014, 19:00, German National Library, Deutscher Platz 1, Leipzig
Free admission

A German National Library event, organised in cooperation with 18. Leipziger Literarischer Herbst.

About Philipp Ther

Philipp Ther was born in 1967 and is now Professor at the Institut für Osteuropäische Geschichte at the University of Vienna. Previously Ther was a John F. Kennedy fellow at Harvard University and professor at the European University Institute in Florence. His book “The dark side of nation states: ethnic cleansing in modern Europe” received an award from the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels in 2012 and has been translated into various languages.

Background

For over a century now the German National Library has been collecting, documenting, archiving and making publicly available all written and sound recording publications issued in Germany, or in German, since 1913.
It provides its comprehensive range of services at its twin sites in Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main, but also in digital form to a global circle of users. In addition the German National Library also houses valuable and extensive special collections in the German Exile Archive 1933 - 1945 and the German Museum of Books and Writing. It showcases its valuable collections and promotes the culture of books, reading and music by regularly staging readings, exhibitions, lectures and concerts. It houses almost 29 million media units and attracts roughly 220,000 visitors to its two sites in Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main with its collections and rich and varied programme of events.