Review "...this book answers the question of our age and provides an eminently worthy target to shoot at." Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs "Bunce's story is a complicated one, but that, in fact, is part of the message of her book: that parsimony in explaining macrolevel historical change may come at the cost of cutting out precisely those variables that need attention...The real value of her account is its concretizin exactly what the much-discussed "communist legacies" really are." World Politics 53 "The arguments presented in the book bear upon a larger circle of issues in the study of comparative transitions from socialism." Slavic and East European Journal Review "...this book answers the question of our age and provides an eminently worthy target to shoot at." Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs "Bunce's story is a complicated one, but that, in fact, is part of the message of her book: that parsimony in explaining macrolevel historical change may come at the cost of cutting out precisely those variables that need attention...The real value of her account is its concretizin exactly what the much-discussed "communist legacies" really are." World Politics 53 "The arguments presented in the book bear upon a larger circle of issues in the study of comparative transitions from socialism." Slavic and East European Journal --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.