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The Year That Changed the World
- The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall
- Narrated by: Ed Sala
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
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Publisher's summary
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" President Ronald Reagan's famous exhortation when visiting Berlin in 1987 has long been widely cited as the clarion call that brought the Cold War to an end. The United States won, so this version of history goes, because Ronald Reagan stood firm against the USSR; American resoluteness brought the evil empire to its knees. Michael Meyer, who was there at the time as a Newsweek bureau chief, begs to differ.
In this extraordinarily compelling account of the revolutions that roiled Eastern Europe in 1989, Meyer shows that American intransigence was only one of many factors that provoked world-shaking change. He draws together breathtakingly vivid, on-the-ground accounts of the rise of the Solidarity movement in Poland, the stealth opening of the Hungarian border, the Velvet Revolution in Prague, and the collapse of the infamous wall in Berlin. But the most important events, Meyer contends, occurred secretly, in the heroic stands taken by individuals in the thick of the struggle - leaders such as poet and playwright Vaclav Havel in Prague; the Baltic shipwright Lech Walesa; the quietly determined reform prime minister in Budapest, Miklos Nemeth; and the man who privately realized that his empire was already lost and decided, with courage and intelligence, to let it go in peace, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet general secretary of the Communist party. Reporting for Newsweek from the frontlines in Eastern Europe, Meyer spoke to these players and countless others. Alongside their deliberate interventions were also the happenstance and human error of history that are always present when events accelerate to breakneck speed.
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Viewed from a distance, random chaos can take on the semblance of logical patterns, and events that spring from accidents can be portrayed as inevitable. In his book, Michael Meyer reveals "the logic of human messiness" at the center of that history-making year, 1989, when the haphazard unravelling of the communist states was encapsulated by the misunderstanding that prompted the fall of the Berlin Wall: a confused spokesman at a press conference stated that people were free to travel to the West “ab sofort” immediately.
The great gift of this book is the first-hand familiarity that comes from the author’s stint as Newsweek’s correspondent in Germany, central Europe, and the Balkans during the years immediately prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. We follow him from Budapest to Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, and Moscow as he chases stories and attends off-the-record meetings where he interviews and captures with the economical pen of a portraitist such key crucial players as Vaclav Havel and “unlikeable” Lech Walesa. There is an unforgettable portrayal of Ceausescu, each detail illuminating the psychology of a dictator. After an hour’s wait, Ceausescu shuffles in, “wearing woven plastic shoes and a baggy grey suit, and offered a moist weak palm. His people feared this man as Satan. They referred to him simply as ‘He’.”
The title’s boast of “untold story” is partially justified by the unprecedented attention given to the quiet contributions of Hungarian Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth and his secret cooperation with the West German authorities in opening the Austrian/Hungarian border in the summer of 1989, allowing hundreds of East Germans to take the long route out. Meyer recounts each movement of defectors as if he was reporting on a surreal sporting event, a “maelstrom of calculated confusion”. At the end of the night, lines of abandoned Trabants those derided cars now nostalgic symbols of the GDR were left behind, unclaimed.
The choice of narrator here adds another dimension to the narrative. Ed Sala’s weathered voice recalls a cross between John Wayne and Donald Rumsfeld, an ironic choice given Meyer’s argument against the neocons’ retroactive adoption of 1989 as something other than what it was. If not quite an apt choice then, Sala is a fundamentally enjoyable voice to listen to, and his solid delivery is rich with personality. Even his slight awkwardness with non-English word is endearingly authentic. Sala’s seniority also lends authority to Meyer’s concluding message, that “we live as much as what we believed happened to us, as by what actually did”. Dafydd Phillips
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In this remarkably human portrait of one of the 20th century's most complicated personalities, author Andrew Scott Cooper traces Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's life from childhood through his ascension to the throne in 1941. He highlights the turbulence of the postwar era, during which the shah survived assassination attempts and coup plots to build a modern, pro-Western state and launch Iran onto the world stage as one of the world's top five powers.
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Excellent account of a pivotal and sad time
- By Guerin Shea on 09-05-16
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Lenin on the Train
- By: Catherine Merridale
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In April 1917, as Tsar Nicholas II's abdication sent shockwaves across war-torn Europe, the future leader of the Bolshevik revolution, Vladimir Lenin, was far away, exiled in Zurich. To lead the revolt, Lenin needed to return to Petrograd immediately. But to get there, he would have to cross Germany, which meant accepting help from the deadliest of Russia's adversaries and betraying his homeland.
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Deteriorates into Unhinged Lenin-Bashing
- By Ike Nahem on 03-18-19
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Reagan at Reykjavik
- Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War
- By: Ken Adelman
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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A dramatic account of the historic 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Iceland - the turning point in the Cold War - by Ken Adelman, Reagan's arms control director and a key player in that weekend's world-changing events. In October 1986, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met for a forty-eight-hour summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. Planned as a short gathering to outline future talks, the meeting quickly turned to major international issues, including SDI ("Star Wars") and the possibility of eliminating all nuclear weapons.
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Outstanding Tribute
- By MOV on 11-17-23
By: Ken Adelman
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Children of the Night
- The Strange and Epic Story of Modern Romania
- By: Paul Kenyon
- Narrated by: Paul Kenyon
- Length: 19 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The country that gave us Vlad Dracula, and whose citizens consider themselves descendants of ancient Rome, has traditionally preferred the status of enigmatic outsider. But this beautiful and unexplored land has experienced some of the most disastrous leaderships of the last century. After a relatively benign period led by a dutiful king and his vivacious, British-born queen, the country oscillated wildly.
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A haunting look at Romanian history
- By Steve Adams on 07-19-24
By: Paul Kenyon
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The Last Palace
- Europe's Turbulent Century in Five Lives and One Legendary House
- By: Norman Eisen
- Narrated by: Jeff Goldblum
- Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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When Norman Eisen moved into the US ambassador’s residence in Prague, returning to the land his mother had fled after the Holocaust, he was startled to discover swastikas hidden beneath the furniture in his new home. These symbols of Nazi Germany were remnants of the residence’s forgotten history, and evidence that we never live far from the past. From that discovery unspooled the twisting, captivating tale of four of the remarkable people who had called this palace home. Their story is Europe’s....
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Great book despite goldblum’s narration
- By Fernando Ferrante on 01-19-19
By: Norman Eisen
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Candy Bombers
- By: Andrei Cherny
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 24 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed author Andrei Cherny tells the gripping saga of a rag-tag band of Americans - with limited resources and little hope for success - keeping West Berliners alive in the face of Soviet tyranny, winning the hearts and minds of former enemies, and giving the world a shining example of fundamental goodness.
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Wonderful Story, Well-Read
- By Alex on 10-07-09
By: Andrei Cherny
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Thirteen Days in September
- Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David
- By: Lawrence Wright
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall, Lawrence Wright
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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A gripping day-by-day account of the 1978 Camp David conference, when President Jimmy Carter persuaded Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to sign the first peace treaty in the modern Middle East, one which endures to this day.
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Lessons in Negotiation
- By David on 06-18-15
By: Lawrence Wright
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The Assassins' Gate
- America in Iraq
- By: George Packer
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 19 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The Assassins' Gate, so dubbed by American soldiers, is the entrance to the American zone in the city of Baghdad. In 2003, the United States blazed into Iraq to depose dictator Saddam Hussein. But after three years and unknown thousands killed, that country faces an escalating civil war and an uncertain fate. How did it get to this point?
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Highly Recommended
- By Drapeau on 02-01-07
By: George Packer
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The Long Hangover
- Putin’s New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past
- By: Shaun Walker
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Long Hangover, Shaun Walker provides new insight into contemporary Russia and its search for a new identity, telling the story through the country's troubled relationship with its Soviet past. Walker not only explains Vladimir Putin's goals and the government's official manipulations of history, but also focuses on ordinary Russians and their motivations. He charts how Putin raised victory in World War II to the status of a national founding myth in the search for a unifying force to heal a divided country, and shows how dangerous the ramifications of this have been.
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Fascinating and fair book on Putin's Russia
- By MyPublicName on 02-16-18
By: Shaun Walker
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A Continent for the Taking
- The Tragedy and Hope of Africa
- By: Howard W. French
- Narrated by: Mirron E. Willis
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In A Continent for the Taking, Howard W. French, a veteran correspondent for The New York Times, gives a compelling firsthand account of some of Africa's most devastating recent history. While he captures the tragedies that have repeatedly befallen Africa's peoples, French also opens our eyes to the immense possibility that lies in Africa's complexity, diversity, and myriad cultural strengths.
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A story to pay your attention to
- By George on 04-30-13
By: Howard W. French
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Trotsky in New York, 1917
- A Radical on the Eve of Revolution
- By: Kenneth D. Ackerman
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Lev Davidovich Trotsky burst onto the world stage in November 1917 as coleader of a Marxist Revolution seizing power in Russia. It made him one of the most recognized personalities of the 20th century, a global icon of radical change. Yet just months earlier, this same Lev Trotsky was a nobody, a refugee expelled from Europe, writing obscure pamphlets and speeches, barely noticed outside a small circle of fellow travelers. Where had he come from to topple Russia and change the world? Where else? New York.
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Great Story; Ludicrous Conclusion
- By Salvator Marinello on 12-03-20
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The People's Republic of Amnesia
- Tiananmen Revisited
- By: Louisa Lim
- Narrated by: Louisa Lim
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In The People's Republic of Amnesia, NPR correspondent Louisa Lim charts how the events of June 4 changed China, and how China changed the events of June 4 by rewriting its own history. Lim reveals new details about those fateful days, including how one of the country's most senior politicians lost a family member to an army bullet, as well as the inside story of the young soldiers sent to clear Tiananmen Square.
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great book and recording
- By Robert Peters on 06-14-16
By: Louisa Lim
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Berlin 1961
- Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth
- By: Frederick Kempe
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 20 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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A former Wall Street Journal editor and the current president and CEO of the Atlantic Council, Frederick Kempe draws on recently released documents and personal interviews to re-create the powder keg that was 1961 Berlin. In Cold War Berlin, the United States and the Soviet Union stand nose to nose, with the possibility of nuclear war just one misstep away.
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I am scared in retrospect
- By theenglishmajor on 06-26-11
By: Frederick Kempe
What listeners say about The Year That Changed the World
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Roy
- 09-09-10
A Challenge to Conventional US Perception
Michael Meyer tells the story of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 from the European point of view. In the process, he challenges the conventional explanations for that occurance typically repeated in the States. The reader may not be comfortable with this perspective, but the book is valuable just as well. The reader benefits from the fact that Meyer describes events he witnessed during that year.
During the course of the book, Meyer takes jibes at the first George Bush which, for me, lapsed into cliches. That was a disappointment. In the last chapter of the book Meyer, speculates about the about the meaning of the fall of the wall. I don't mind an author taking a particular political view, but this section yielded no real insight for me. It read like the babble you hear from talking heads every night. I was hungry for more analysis or, even, thoughtful opnion. Overall, however, the book is full of insight, filled with interesting stories, and well worth the listener's time. Ed Sala's reading is very good.
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4 people found this helpful
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- aharnisch
- 11-19-10
Distracting Narration
I enjoyed the personal observations of Mr. Meyer on events surrounding the crumbling of the iron curtain...but I found the monotone of the narrator distracting. I would also caution that the writing style of the Mr. Meyer is not for everyone...I personally find it a little annoying at times.
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1 person found this helpful
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- John
- 07-30-10
Spot on!
This is an excellent listen and spot on about how things were in 1989. The author also showed how the effects of 1989 still can be felt today...good and bad. This book should be a mandatory read or listen for every high school or college student.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Shukhrat
- 08-14-10
important history - but quickly getting irrelevant
Wholesome book but not something spectacular. Somewhere in the middle I got slightly bored. It became more interesting at the end. That is a pity that iron curtain did not fall a few decades earlier.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Roman Kickirillo
- 02-24-22
Mostly good, but…
The body of the book specifically about 1989 were very well done. The epilogue was full of anti-American and anti-capitalist BS that took away from an otherwise fine work. The world has changed since the book was written in 2009 - and much of the authors blather in the epilogue has not aged well.
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- Susan
- 11-24-09
Great book about a great year for democracy.
I lived through the fall of the Berlin wall and thought I was paying attention but there is much in this book I didn't know or remember like the role Hungry played in the fall of communism. Fast moving, lots of information. A part of history we should never forget and we should remember correctly.
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8 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Jeffrey L. Furman
- 05-09-11
Provocative analysis from reporter's perspective
Meyer's book provides an often enthralling synopsis of the events that unfolded at the highest levels of Communist Eastern European governments at the end of the Cold War. Meyer was an on-location reporter at the time & the book reflects his embedded perspective on the events of the era. This is important to note -- Meyer emphasizes the actions undertaken by individual leaders and groups of leaders in the governments and resistance of Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and Romania in his analysis. This differs from the types of analyses that might be provided by academics who would examine the broad, underlying forces that contributed to the demise of the Eastern European Communist dictatorships.
The book is at its best when recounting day-to-day events and decisions. For example, Meyer's account of the efforts of Hungarian Communist officials to use a picnic on the Hungarian-Austrian border to accelerate the Fall of the Berlin Wall is absolutely fascinating. Few individuals other than Meyer have the knowledge of the history & personalities required to do the story justice.
One of the book's central themes is that the U.S. government contributed most effectively to the positive outcomes of 1989 (i.e., the relatively low level of violence and the speed of the revolutions) by diplomatic support for reformers like Gorbachev rather than active destabilization or military intervention. Meyer contrasts this with the policies of the George W. Bush administration & takes care to highlight that many of W's most interventionist leaders (e.g., Cheney & Rice) were among the most wrong-headed of George W. H. Bush's advisors. The book is least interesting to me when drawing these parallels, which could be usefully left to the reader.
Sala reads like an exasperated Clint Eastwood, grunting & sighing distractingly throughout. He seems to massacre European names, butchering German most severely.
Overall, a very interesting topic and useful complement to Anna Funder's Stasiland.
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- Kirill
- 01-10-10
Excellent Book written using first-hand expirience
Excellent Book written using first-hand expirience
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1 person found this helpful
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- A. Kiss
- 09-20-10
A good insider's view of some amazing history
Anyone interested in Eastern European history or the end of the cold war will enjoy this inside view of the amazing events and courageous acts which led to the tumbling of first the iron curtain and then the Berlin wall. Who would have thought some obscure Hungarians were behind it all?
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- George
- 07-18-10
Waste of Time
Typical Newsweek reporter
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2 people found this helpful