"Powerful , , , Muller achieves something beautiful. She has wrested poetry from one woman's desire to remain human in an inhuman system."—Newsday

“Communist Eastern Europe has not usually been seen as a subject for Proustian reflection . . . But in A Book of Memories, Peter Nadas, one of Hungary's pre-eminent literary figures, has accomplished a remarkably interesting feat: he has transposed the novel of consciousness to the Socialist universe, and closed the gap between prewar modernism (inflected here by post-modern psychoanalysis) and Eastern Europe.”—Eva Hoffman, The New York Times Book Review

"With a keen eye for telling detail, a concern for the choices of individual leaders, and careful judgments, Leffler generates a narrative that carries the reader along as it develops important new ideas. This landmark study transcends many of our standard arguments about the Cold War to focus on what it was really about. Driving much of the maneuvering for security and advantage was the struggle over which political system could meet people’s needs and produce a better society."—Robert Jervis, Columbia University