Mixing bold journalism with bolder allegories, Mr. Szab\u0142owski teaches us with witty persistence that we must desire freedom rather than simply expect it.<\/i>
\u2014Timothy Snyder, New York Times bestselling author of On Tyranny<\/i>
An award-winning journalist\u2019s incisive, humorous, and heartbreaking account of people in formerly Communist countries holding fast to their former lives
For hundreds of years, Bulgarian Gypsies trained bears to dance, welcoming them into their families and taking them on the road to perform. In the early 2000s, with the fall of Communism, they were forced to release the bears into a wildlife refuge. But even today, whenever the bears see a human, they still get up on their hind legs to dance.
In the tradition of Ryszard Kapu\u015bci\u0144ski, award-winning Polish journalist Witold Szab\u0142owski <\/b>uncovers remarkable stories of people throughout Eastern Europe and in Cuba who, like Bulgaria\u2019s dancing bears, are now free but who seem nostalgic for the time when they were not. His on-the-ground reporting\u2014of smuggling a car into Ukraine, hitchhiking through Kosovo as it declares independence, arguing with Stalin-adoring tour guides at the Stalin Museum, sleeping in London\u2019s Victoria Station alongside a homeless woman from Poland, and giving taxi rides to Cubans fearing for the life of Fidel Castro\u2014provides a fascinating portrait of social and economic upheaval and a lesson in the challenges of freedom and the seductions of authoritarian rule.<\/p>\n
Witold Szab\u0142owski is a born storyteller. His reports from the post-Communist world read like fairy-tales with the stench of reality. Absurd, darkly funny, compassionate, his book is a literary jewel.<\/i>
\u2014Ian Buruma, author of Year Zero<\/i> and Murder in Amsterdam<\/i>
Should be required reading for anyone hoping to understand the growing appeal of authoritarian leaders in Eastern Europe today . . . Combining black humor with lyrical prose, Szab\u0142owski brilliantly captures the tragic disorientation of men and women whose lives were bifurcated by the sudden collapse of Communism and ruthless onslaught of neoliberal capitalism. . . . A poignant allegory about the human costs of regime change<\/i>. \u2014Kristen Ghodsee, author of Red Hangover: Legacies of Twentieth-Century Communism<\/i>
A fascinating and wide-ranging book that shows how, across different and diverse species, old habits die slowly, if at all. Humans, like other animals, often don\u2019t know when they\u2019ve gained freedom because conditions of oppression have become the norm and they\u2019re unable to adjust to a newfound lack of restraint. Szab\u0142owski\u2019s clever and metaphorical use of dancing bears to make this point is beautifully done.<\/i>
\u2014Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado; coauthor of The Animals\u2019 Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Age of Humans<\/i>
What a gem of a book. . . . So eloquent and original about the psychological transition from regimes.<\/i>
\u2014Ruth Ben-Ghiat, New York University
A brisk narrative [and] a surprising look at societies grappling with profound change.<\/i>
\u2014Kirkus Reviews
Heartrending . . . A sharply drawn account.<\/i>
\u2014Publishers Weekly<\/p>\n