The Canadian ambassador to the United States during the Reagan administration recounts his experiences and shares insights

Ivan T. Berend is Distinguished Professor at the University of California Los Angeles, Director of the European Studies Program. He was one of the masterminds of regime change in Hungary. He made a career in Hungary as a university professor, Rector of the University of Economics (1973–79), and President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1985–90). He was President of the International Committee of Historical Sciences (1995–2000), and Vice-President of the International Economic History Association (1986–1994). His research interests are the complex economic, social, ideological, and cultural history of Central and Eastern Europe in the 19th–20th century; economic modernization; problems of European backwardness; transition from state socialism to capitalism. He published and 26 books and more than 120 studies. Before he became a professor at UCLA, Ivan Berend had survived five regime changes and two revolutions in Hungary, had been in prison and German concentration camp in 1944–45. His memoir offers an interesting case study, a subjective addition to the "objective" historical works on Central and Eastern European state socialism. It describes the hard choices of intellectuals in a dictatorial state: 1. remain in isolation, concentrate on scholarly works, and exclude politics in your personal life; 2. be in opposition, criticize and unveil the regime, accept discrimination and exclusion; 3. remain within the establishment and work for reforming the country using legal possibilities to criticize the regime and to achieve changes from within. Berend’s book raises basic historical questions and debates, compares East European and American higher education systems, and presents an eyewitness’ insights on life in the United States.

Thumb through the index of almost any study of the Thatcher years -- biographical, scholarly or journalistic -- and you will come across the name of Sir Alfred Sherman. In her memoirs Lady Thatcher herself pays tribute to Sherman's 'brilliance', the 'force and clarity of his mind', his 'breadth of reading and his skills as a ruthless polemicist'. She credits him with a central role in her achievements, especially as Leader of the Opposition but also after she became Prime Minister. Born in 1919 in London's East End, until 1948 Sherman was a Communist and fought in the Spanish Civil War. But he ended up an indefatigable free-market crusader. The book describes his early relationship with Sir Keith Joseph and his own role in the formation of the Centre for Policy Studies in 1974. Sherman examines the origins and development of 'Thatcherism', but concludes that the Conservative administrations of the 1980s were, for the most part, an 'interlude' and that the post-war consensus remains largely unscathed -- 'we are back to where we started'.

Walter Gordon was a born member of the Canadian Establishment, a senior partner in one of the country's major accounting firms, successful and powerful in the world of business. After considerable persuasion by his close friend Prime Minister Lester Pearson, Gordon left business for politics and became finance minister in the Liberal government in 1963. But Gordon was different from many of his associates--he had an abiding concern for Canada, and for ensuring the independence of its enconomy. He worked to enshrine this perspective in the Liberal Party, the Pearson government and in Canadian politics generally. Walter Gordon: A Political Memoir tells the story of a politician who put principles above personal ambition, who suffered disappointments and defeats, but who always stood out as a man who remained true to his beliefs.

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