A01=Bela Tomka
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Bela Tomka
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Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBJD
Category=NHD
Communism
Consumption
COP=Hungary
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
East and West
Economic development
Economic history
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eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Language_English
PA=Available
Postcommunism
Price_€50 to €100
PS=Active
softlaunch
Product details
- ISBN 9789633863510
- Dimensions: 168 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 15 Sep 2020
- Publisher: Central European University Press
- Publication City/Country: HU
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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This monograph updates existing scholarship on the economic performance of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland since 1945, contrasting it to Western Europe. For this longitudinal comparative exercise, the author goes beyond the traditional growth paradigm and analyzes the historical patterns of consumption and leisure, as well as quality of life, broadly understood, aspects that Tomka argues can best be analyzed in relation to one other. By adopting this "triple approach", his analysis relies not only on economic history and economics, but also on the methods and results of sociology and demography. Tomka's three pillar description shows that the pre-WWI period was the time when East Central Europe was closest to Western Europe. The interwar period sustained this level. The book thus dispels the widespread myth of the communist era as one of catching up and convergence. Beyond providing useful quantitative information, the author provides insight on the scholarly debates ranging from the factors of growth to demographic developments to the complexities of consumption in communist regimes. The analysis finally demonstrates that the post-communist transition, despite its high social and economic costs, allowed for qualitative and quantitative convergence, stalled only by the financial crisis of 2008.
Bela Tomka is professor of History at Department of Contemporary History, University of Szeged, Hungary
