Ash, to his credit, leaves it to the reader to conclude that man does not live by bread alone. Ash communicates with telling examples the spirit of freedom that propelled the peace movement in Germany, Solidarity's labor movement in Poland, and the Velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia. His anecdotes are marvelous, as he gives snapshots of Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel and others, great and small. His interviews with many of the common people are apropos and poignant. Ash shows that all is not well in the years since freedom broke out.
Mafia is a dreaded word across the former East.
Indeed, he suggests that, the farther one travels, the more power the various Mafias have. We see how the former communists have manipulated the privileged status they once had into modern capitalist exploitations as well. We learn that the great strides in some economic infrastructures have succeeded. Of course, much space is also devoted to the great evil that is warfare in the former Yugoslavia. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.