Padraic Kenney's Books

Dance in Chains

Political Imprisonment in the Modern World

By: Padraic Kenney

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Dance in Chains

Political Imprisonment in the Modern World

By: Padraic Kenney

A study of the role of political imprisonment in the modern world in regimes ranging from communist to fascist to colonial to democratic.

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Page Count

345

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199375747

ISBN 13

9780199375745

The Burdens of Freedom

Eastern Europe since 1989

By: Padraic Kenney

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The Burdens of Freedom

Eastern Europe since 1989

By: Padraic Kenney

From Estonia to Macedonia, this book is a history of 15 countries as they negotiate their transition from communism. For some, the story ends happily, with triumphant entry into the European Union in 2004.Others are caught in limbo, destroyed by nationalist politics, war and genocide, or crippled by corrupt political practices. The Burdens of Freedom considers the effects of revolutionary change, the resurgence of nationalism and the painful examination of the past. It looks at the process of building stable democratic states, and their integration with international structures. Most of the countries have established admission to the EU as a national objective; but many of them have also been active participants in the American-led occupation of Iraq. Domestically, each has seen a divide emerge between winners and losers. All are moving forward simultaneously to democracy, unity and prosperity, but also to national division and economic disparity.

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Page Count

280

Publisher

Zed Books Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

184813620X

ISBN 13

9781848136205

Dance in Chains

Political Imprisonment in the Modern World

By: Padraic Kenney

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Dance in Chains

Political Imprisonment in the Modern World

By: Padraic Kenney

A study of the role of political imprisonment in the modern world in regimes ranging from communist to fascist to colonial to democratic.

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Page Count

345

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199375747

ISBN 13

9780199375745

Rebuilding Poland

Workers and Communists, 1945-1950

By: Padraic Kenney

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Rebuilding Poland

Workers and Communists, 1945-1950

By: Padraic Kenney

The first book to examine the communist takeover in Poland from the bottom up, and the first to use archives opened in 1989, Rebuilding Poland provides a radically new interpretation of the communist experience. Padraic Kenney argues that the postwar takeover was also a social revolution, in which workers expressed their hopes for dramatic social change and influenced the evolution--and eventual downfall--of the communist regime.Kenney compares Lödz, Poland's largest manufacturing center, and Wroclaw, a city rebuilt as Polish upon the ruins of wartime destruction. His account of dramatic strikes in the textile mills of Lödz shows how workers resisted the communist party's encroachment on factory terrain and its infringements of worker dignity. The contrasting absence of labor conflict among migrants in the frontier city of Wroclaw holds important clues to the nature of stalinism in Poland: communist power was strongest where workers lacked organizational ties or cultural roots. In the collective reaction of workers in Lödz and the individualism of those in Wroclaw, Kenney locates the beginnings of the end of the communist regime. Losing the battle for worker identity, the communists placed their hopes in labor competition, which ultimately left the regime hostage to a resistant work force and an overextended economy incapable of reform.

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Page Count

396

Publisher

Cornell University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0801432871

ISBN 13

9780801432873

A Carnival of Revolution

Central Europe 1989

By: Padraic Kenney

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A Carnival of Revolution

Central Europe 1989

By: Padraic Kenney

This is the first history of the revolutions that toppled communism in Europe to look behind the scenes at the grassroots movements that made those revolutions happen. It looks for answers not in the salons of power brokers and famed intellectuals, not in decrepit economies--but in the whirlwind of activity that stirred so crucially, unstoppably, on the street. Melding his experience in Solidarity-era Poland with the sensibility of a historian, Padraic Kenney takes us into the hearts and minds of those revolutionaries across much of Central Europe who have since faded namelessly back into everyday life. This is a riveting story of musicians, artists, and guerrilla theater collectives subverting traditions and state power; a story of youthful social movements emerging in the 1980s in Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and parts of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Kenney argues that these movements were active well before glasnost. Some protested military or environmental policy. Others sought to revive national traditions or to help those at the margins of society. Many crossed forbidden borders to meet their counterparts in neighboring countries. They all conquered fear and apathy to bring people out into the streets. The result was a revolution unlike any other before: nonviolent, exuberant, even light-hearted, but also with a relentless political focus--a revolution that leapt from country to country in the exciting events of 1988 and 1989. A Carnival of Revolution resounds with the atmosphere of those turbulent years: the daring of new movements, the unpredictability of street demonstrations, and the hopes and regrets of the young participants. A vivid photo-essay complements engaging prose to fully capture the drama. Based on over two hundred interviews in twelve countries, and drawing on samizdat and other writings in six languages, this is among the most insightful and compelling accounts ever published of the historical milestone that ushered in our age.

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