Café Europa Revisited: How to Survive Post-Communism

This book is disappointing. It can be infuriating in so many ways. I list some of them here:a) generalizations, half baked truths, half truths and occasional untruths, particularly about Eastern Europeb) insufficient and shallow knowledge of the topics discussed, likely due to laziness or neglectc) lack any specific strong convictions or opinionsd) lack of of interest in any solutions to the pressing issues at hande) overwhelming pessimism and negativity, particularly in regards to her fellow Slavsf) disrespect for the American reader, for whom this book was writtenThis book's value consists of:a) having to check all information online, even if it is just about an update about a topicb) being forced to face the issues alone, since the author doesn't offer any help; it can stimulate your own thinkingc) training your eyes to see how spreading stereotypes works in printd) training your eyes to see how one happily arranges facts and semi-truths to make a seemingly powerful statemente) being forced to investigate how much of what you're reading is true and how much of what you read requires a more thorough commentary and proper understandingf) being forced to see how the author's own heritage shaped the way she sees the world, and how much of that is perfectly justified and how much it is notg) dealing with the question that perhaps someone not born in that region of the world could have written a much better book

I tried to read this book because New York Times talked about it. Some things were interesting for example about Russian speaking population in Ukraine I didn’t know some of the details. One of the reason that I didn’t like this book too much is that the author used “he”referring to a consumer instead of he or she or they. Hearing “he” is a very strange nowadays, especially because the author seem to be very liberal. Anyway maybe that was the editor’s mistake.

Why is Eastern Europe still struggling? A charming series of essays helps us understand what makes the Balkans tick. The sequel was better than the first volume. Four stars.