Illiberal Europe

Eastern Europe from the Fall of the Berlin Wall to the War in Ukraine

By: Leon Marc

Narrated by: Mark Elstob

Eighteen years have passed since ten countries from Central & Eastern Europe joined the European Union and more than three decades since the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989—but ignorance about what is popularly still called Eastern Europe is as widespread as ever. Slovenia still gets mixed up with Slovakia, the Slavs remain a mystery in a Europe apparently dominated by Romanic and Germanic nations and a country like the Czech Republic is labelled as Eastern European, although one needs to travel west to get from Vienna to Prague.

First published in 2009 under the title What's so eastern about Eastern Europe?, this book is much more than a revised and updated version of the first edition. Its presentation of the political and cultural history of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, written in an accessible language is now complemented with recent developments in the region. The new edition digs into the reasons behind the illiberal turn in Poland, Hungary and elsewhere, putting the alleged democratic backslide into the wider context of European populism. Leon Marc offers a new and fresh perspective in explaining the roots of populism and social conservativism in the region, which the book sees in a mixture of historical factors, economic conditions, the heavy burden of Communist legacy, as well as a reaction to contemporary social developments in the West. Drawing on a wide range of literature, the book calls for more sensibility to these underlying causes, critical examination of the true European values, and for a coalition of defenders of Humanism and Judeo-Christian tradition as key pillars of its identity, in order to save Europe and its liberal democracy.

This updated and expanded edition contains a brand new chapter bringing this book up to date with recent events, including Covid-19 and the Ukrainian conflict.

'Comprehensively and concisely, Leon Marc's book presents readers with vital insights into the different dimensions of our common European history and culture'—Professor Dr Jaap W. de Zwaan, Director of the Netherlands Institute of International Relations

©2023 Leon Marc (P)2023 W. F. Howes Ltd

Thoughtful, but Overly One Sided

While the author is for the most part respectful, this is essentially a book lamenting that Eastern and Central Europe gravitate more towards conservative policies. The author is critical of Poland's PiS(Law and Justice Party's) anti-abortion measures, but I find myself far more sympathetic to PiS's stance on abortion than the author's, which did affect my overall view of the book. it's understandable that a liberal diplomat from Slovenia, which is a relatively liberal Central European country, would disagree with such a stance. What's not understandable is how the author insists on the importance of understanding Central and Eastern European countries, without actually trying grant any sort of legitimacy to opposing views. As a pro-life activist, I find myself primarily focused on the abortion issue. There is a large number of people opposed to abortion, but yet only a few European governments that are successful in making any real effort to prevent such. Poland's PiS party happens to be a major part of one of such government, and rather than accepting that there are different views within Europe, Leon Marc seems to suggest that this is indictive of some kind of antidemocratic extremism, alien to European values. I disagree. Rather it appears to me that when you're used to having you policies go unchallenged, differences appear more threatening than they actually are.