KACPER SZULECKI, Dissidents in Communist Central Europe. Human Rights and the Emergence of New Transnational Actors

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, 242 pp.

Abstract

The book Dissidents in Communist Central Europe: Human Rights and the Emergence of New Transnational Actors, written by Kacper Szulecki, Polish professor, and researcher at Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, was published in 2019. As one of the few books to focus on such a topic, the piece dissects the conception and evolution of the phenomenon of “dissidentism” and its dimensions, in the context of Central European regimes during the Cold War.1 The author aims to provide the readers with a detailed narrative and analysis of four specific Central European states, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and East Germany, and the manifestations of dissidents and dissidentism in those countries. Szulecki makes use of historical sources, letters, and journals belonging to famous dissident figures,  analyzing all four cases in parallel. The book consists of ten parts, the first being the Introduction, while the
following nine chapters are set in chronological order.