A new review of Taking Stock of Shock

Architects of socialism built the Berlin Wall, symbolizing political unfreedom. When it fell, new walls emerged. Architects of neoliberal capitalism have built walls made of precarity and inequality, limiting what Eastern Europeans could do with their newly gained freedom. Scholarly walls separating disciplines inhibit us from correctly gauging the post-socialist landscape. Ghodsee and Orenstein’s new book, Taking Stock of Shock (Oxford University Press, 2021) breaks down these disciplinary walls and presents the most comprehensive assessment of the post-socialist transformation yet.

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