In the long-awaited follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag , acclaimed journalist Anne Applebaum delivers a groundbreaking history of how Communism took over Eastern Europe after World War II and transformed in frightening fashion the individuals who came under its sway. At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron Curtain , Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete. She draws on newly opened East European archives, interviews, and personal accounts translated for the first time to portray in devastating detail the dilemmas faced by millions of individuals trying to adjust to a way of life that challenged their every belief and took away everything they had accumulated. Today the Soviet Bloc is a lost civilization, one whose cruelty, paranoia, bizarre morality, and strange aesthetics Applebaum captures in the electrifying pages of Iron Curtain .

南斯拉夫地处“欧洲大药桶”的巴尔干半岛，20世纪初以来是欧美大国激烈争夺的热点地区。“一战”后，建立了南斯拉夫王国。第二次世界大战中，南斯拉夫各族人民取得了反对德、意法西斯战争的伟大胜利。“二战”后，建立了南斯拉夫联邦共和国，走上了独立自主建设社会主义的道路。在20世纪90年代初苏东剧变的国际大环境下，南斯拉夫联邦解体。本书叙述了南斯拉夫国家从兴起至瓦解，迄今形成六个独立的共和国，历经沧桑的演变过程。

《东欧史》内容简介：在国际政治舞台上，东欧既是被重视的地方，也是被轻视的地方。说重视，是指从古到今各大国势力常常把东欧作为称霸欧洲和称霸世界的重点或起点；说轻视，是指大国在划分势力范围和构建世界体系的时候又极少考虑东欧民族或国家的利益与诉求，多半将它们当作大国之间讨价还价的筹码或争夺和控制的客体。在世界历史发展的长河中，东欧为什么自己当家作主的时候少，而受制于人或任人宰割的时候多？东欧有没有不间断的社会发展？影响东欧社会发展的主要因素又是什么？从这些疑问出发，《东欧史》在大国和大国关系的框架内对东欧整体的社会发展过程进行了研究，时间跨度从东欧民族形成、早期国家建立到迄今为止尚未完结的重返欧洲进程，长达几千年。

数十个中欧国家或地区的全面介绍，上百幅民族人文地理变迁示意图，近二十个民族历史的专题分析。 中部欧洲国家的历史，特别是20世纪的历史，很大程度上是一部经受战争。迫害、屠杀和流放的历史。作者以审慎的笔触叙述了先后受控于德意志、奥斯曼、俄罗斯等帝国的中欧各族人民。在东西方的夹缝中饱受的侵袭与骚扰。同时，也再现了中欧各族人民在民族身份确认过程中所创造的辉煌文明。