Washington History Seminar
Historical Perspectives on International and National Affairs

Empowering Revolution: America, Poland, and the Moderates who Ended the Cold War
Gregory F. Domber

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH FLORIDA

Triumphalist accounts of the end of the Cold War point to Poland as a central example of the Reagan administration’s successful strategy to undermine Communist power. Based on significant new international research, Domber reassesses the nature of Western influence on the end of the Cold War, highlighting where Soviet reforms created space for change in Eastern Europe and rejecting claims of any direct U.S. responsibility for the collapse of Communism. American policy did, however, empower the indigenous dissident movement that deserves credit for bringing democracy to Poland in 1989.  

Gregory F. Domber is an associate professor of history at the University of North Florida. He received his Ph.D. from The George Washington University and was a Hewlett Post-Doctoral Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Democracy Development and the Rule of Law. His first book, Empowering Revolution: America, Poland, and the End of the Cold War, was published by the University of North Carolina Press earlier this month.

Monday October 20, 2014
4:00 p.m. 
Woodrow Wilson Center, 6th Floor Moynihan Board Room
Ronald Reagan Building, Federal Triangle Metro Stop