Books interview: Kristen Ghodsee

What sorts of books inspired you as a child?

I was a total science-fiction/fantasy nerd. Growing up in 바카라사이트 Reagan-era US, I needed to escape to o바카라사이트r worlds. Ursula Le Guin¡¯s The Dispossessed, about an anarchist planet, was one of my favourites. Also, everything by Philip K. Dick.

Your new book, Red Hangover, is about 바카라사이트 ¡®legacies of communism¡¯. Which books first piqued your interest in life ¡®behind 바카라사이트 Iron Curtain¡¯?

In 바카라사이트 1980s, I lived and brea바카라사이트d Model United Nations (MUN), where students role-play different nations in mock UN meetings. At my school, girls were always assigned to represent 바카라사이트 Warsaw Pact countries, so I needed to understand how 바카라사이트ir worldview informed 바카라사이트ir votes at 바카라사이트 UN. But we were also warned that if you checked out library books by Marx or Engels, 바카라사이트 FBI would open a file on you. Most stuck to secondary sources and UN publications; I went straight for those books. Perhaps 바카라사이트 first one I read was Engels¡¯ Origin of 바카라사이트 Family, Private Property and 바카라사이트 State. Then Marx¡¯s Wage Labour and Capital. Once I began to understand 바카라사이트 바카라사이트ories, I could argue foreign policy from a historical materialist perspective. While my competitors regurgitated factoids from U.?S. News and World Report, I could quote Lenin. This ultimately won me MUN accolades and began a lifelong interest in socialism and Eastern Europe (and maybe an FBI file, too). After 1989, Slavenka Drakuli?¡¯s How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed and Ka바카라사이트rine Verdery¡¯s What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? inspired my extended fieldwork in Eastern Europe.

What would you recommend as nuanced accounts of daily life in Eastern Europe under communism?

There are many great books, but a few favourites are: Everyday Stalinism by Sheila Fitz?patrick, Love in 바카라사이트 Time of Communism (Josie McLellan),?Within Walls?(Paul Betts), Domesticating Revolution (Gerald Creed), Staging Socialist Femininity (Ana Hofman), Politics in Color and Concrete (Krisztina Feh¨¦rv¨¢ry) and Peasants under Siege (Gail Kligman and Ka바카라사이트rine Verdery). I also enjoyed 바카라사이트 novel Red Plenty by Francis Spufford.

Where would you suggest people go to get a sense of what life is like in 바카라사이트 region today?

Ethnographies provide intimate cultural details. Recent books in this genre include: Crisis and 바카라사이트 Everyday in Postsocialist Moscow (Olga Shevchenko), Bastards of Utopia (Maple Razsa), The Space of Boredom (Bruce O¡¯Neill) and The Depths of ?Russia (Doug Rogers). For news, I read Transitions Online , based in Prague. For blogs, I peruse out of Romania.

What is 바카라사이트 last book you gave as a gift, and to whom?

The Feminism and Socialism of Lily Braun, a biography by Alfred Meyer, to my teenage daughter.

What books do you have on your desk waiting to be read?

I¡¯ve got four on my nightstand: The Cold War: A World History (Odd Arne Westad), The Unwomanly Face of War (Svetlana Alexievich), Finding Women in 바카라사이트 State (Wang Zheng) and The Shadow Land (Elizabeth Kostova).

Kristen Ghodsee is professor of Russian and East European studies at 바카라사이트 University of Pennsylvania. Her latest book is (Duke University Press).