Even before the rise of transnational history it was common knwodledge, in scholarship and public perception, that East European dissent was a phenomenon without borders. Thus, it is striking that transnational studies on the history of dissent in the Soviet bloc are rare. Robert Brier's edited volume fills this gap and gathers different case studies on the entanglement of dissent during late socialism. It presents the results of a conference at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw held in 2010.

In his introduction Brier goes well beyond simply reflecting on the background of dissent and its transnational scope, developing a stimulating research agenda. Questioning the simplistic dichotomy between regime and dissent and understanding the latter as shared practices of communication, he follows a revisionist position in the study of socialist societies. [1] Brier leaves behind the teleology of democratization that latently reduces dissidents to a prelude of 1989. Although his impetus lies on personal dissident actors, rather than oppositional structures, this allows for an understanding of dissent as a heterogeneous phenomenon that integrates competing and conflicting ideological standpoints. Therefore it was not the similarity of repression that constituted the transnational character of dissent but the shared practices of empowerment and the solidarity amongst East European dissidents including actors well beyond the Soviet bloc. This second audience of dissidents in the West is the main focus of Brier's interest and thus the volume asks why 'would people in the west listen to what dissidents had to say' (p. 13).

Padraic Kenney, probably the first scholar to illuminate the transnational action of dissidence in more detail [2], comments in his contribution on Brier's reflections. Against the backdrop of his own findings he argues that it is crucial to precisely identify the actors and moments of transnational action to understand its scope. Moreover, he introduces a model of transnational entanglement that differentiates figuratively between the 'electromagnetic force' (p. 45) that binds actors together and the 'radio waves' (p. 51) that transport content without the interaction of transmitters and receivers. His global perspective in particular–beyond Eastern Europe, Kenney draws on Latin America, South Africa and China–offers illuminating insights into the mechanisms and limitations of transnational action. Given the changing quality of media and technology, Kenney underlines the importance of content and situational context for studying transnational history.

The case studies in this volume approach the transnational history of dissent from three perspectives. A first section deals with mutual contacts and intermediaries between both East and West and dissidents in different socialist countries. Julia Metger, for instance, scrutinizes the role of Western newspaper correspondents in Moscow and their own contribution to dissent. By building personal networks amongst dissidents and closely following their activities, correspondents became actors, both in the Soviet Union and the Western public sphere. The second section on human rights and détente examines dissent as a topic of diplomatic and political relations. Both Wanda Jarząbek and Bent Boel argue that the influence of Western institutions, such as Western diplomacy during the CSCE-process or Western European social democrats in contact with the ruling socialist parties, opened up new possibilities for dissidents.

Similarly, the articles of the third section take external factors into account. Kim Christiaens and Idesbald Goddeeris highlight the parallel and yet disentangled Belgian solidarity movements with Poland and Nicaragua during the early 1980s. Like Metger they stress the twofold role of intermediaries and the wide influence dissidents had on their Western partners. Kacper Szulecki demonstrates how the content of protest evolved through transnational contacts. Polish peace activists of Wolność i Pokój, for instance, transformed the pacifist beliefs of their Hungarian role-models and eventually formed a human rights pressure group. A similar transcending of borders can be found in Holger Nehring's study with West and East German peace and environmental movements.

Making use of the contingency of dissent in Eastern Europe, articles like Metger's understand dissent as a concept produced in transnational negotiation. In other words, dissidents in other socialist countries or Western actors were not only helpful for dissident activities, but contributed to the shaping of dissent itself. This insight will prove most fruitful in further research and help to reexamine Western scholarship on dissent since the 1970s. Given the intensive contacts of those early scholars with dissidents in Poland, Czechoslovakia or the Soviet Union, their writings are also part of the transnational history of dissent.

The volume underlines the fact that a feeling of transnational solidarity brought together highly heterogeneous actors from different countries. Some articles pursue this in detail and disclose the deep impact of solidarity as a concept in the social movements of the 1980s, both in the East and West. Surely it will be worthwhile to investigate further these matters, elaborating especially on the concept of solidarity itself and the transgression of regional and political contexts.

Several articles address the question of how to gather sources for transnational histories of dissent. For instance, Kenney and Tomáš Vilímek make use of oral history, yet with different approaches. Whereas Kenney puts his interviewees into perspective and understands their information as simple suggestions, Vilímek follows their narrative closely and brings to the fore some of the obvious methodological problems of writing the history of dissent. Given the various conflicts about the legacy of dissent and the ambiguous appraisal of the dissidents' efforts in present day Central and Eastern Europe, it remains crucial for the historian to keep his or her distance from contemporary witnesses and their present day interpretations.

The volume under review elucidates impressively that dissent in Eastern Europe cannot be understood without careful attention to Western and global entanglements. The study of dissent and opposition will benefit from this methodological inspiration. Although it was not the explicit focus of the editor's introduction or the respective chapters, a global understanding of transnational processes shines through the entire volume. It will be worth developing this further and approaching the global history of dissent both with comparative and entangled methodological interests.

[1] Cf. Sheila Fitzpatrick: Revisionism in Soviet History, in: History and Theory 46 (2007), pp. 77-91, and Barbara J. Falk : Resistance and Dissent in Central and Eastern Europe. An Emerging Historiography, in: East European Politics and Societies 25 (2011), 2, pp. 318-360.

[2] Padraic Kenney: A Carnival of Revolution. Central Europe 1989, Princeton 2002.

This review was first published in Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 64 (2015) H. 3.

EpE

It is no new insight that history is more than the dealings of presidents, kings and prime ministers. Nevertheless, the history of the East-West conflict is still very often a story of high level negotiations and government considerations. Although the interest in the impact that the division of Europe and the enforcement of communism in Eastern Europe has had on society in East and West has gained ground, this kind of research seldom encompasses a view of both sides of the conflict. The importance of the articles in the book Entangled Protest lies in doing exactly this – telling the story of the contact between East and West 'from below'.

The stated aim of Entangled Protest is to shed new light on the history of dissidence in the Soviet Bloc through a transnational approach. It however does far more than only study the transnational ties between Eastern European dissident movements. Almost all articles also offer an account of transnational ties that cross the Iron Curtain. This way the volume adds a transnational component not only to the historiography on Eastern European dissidence, but also to that of the East-West conflict in general.

The methodological background to the volume is given by the editor Robert Brier and Indiana University professor Padraic Kenney, both of whom have already published extensively on the transnational links of the Eastern European opposition. Especially Kenney's book Carnival of Revolution (2002) is one of the earliest and still leading studies on the topic.

Adhering to a common definition of transnational history, Brier and Kenney prefer to research coincidental meetings, informal dialogues and networks from below over (instead of?) traditional diplomatic history. Kenney explicitly states that he is not interested in the traditional grand narrative of a 'Zeitgeist' or the deterministic 'falling dominoes' of 1989. He graphically describes history as the result of 'radio waves' and 'electromagnetic forces'. The contacts, networks and information exchanges of ordinary activists are 'like atoms in a molecule, bound together and exchanging information over short distances; thus if the opposition in the Soviet bloc was a molecule (…), transnational interactions are like the electromagnetic force binding them closer together' (p. 45). Kenney acknowledges that this kind of history is more difficult to write than traditional diplomatic history. That it is nonetheless possible, is proven by some of the excellent articles in this volume.

In line with Kenney's rejection of 'falling dominoes', Brier stresses how important it is to resist a finalist approach to the history of the 1970s and 1980s. He rightfully states that to truly understand the opposition of these years, it is crucial to be aware that their chances of success in the eyes of those in the East and West seemed very slim.

Brier introduces the concepts and historiography relevant for the book in a methodological and thematic opening article. Although he mainly focuses on the history of dissidence, also here the important East-West component of the book shows. He, for example, emphasises the context of détente. This was indeed important for the Eastern European opposition. Not in the least because the fact that traditional détente thinking had difficulty in understanding the nature and importance of Eastern European dissidence accounted for many of the misunderstandings and paradoxes in the East-West dialogue.

The transnational approach in this volume comes in different forms. While Kacper Szulecki focuses on dialogue between East and West and Nenad Stefanov is concerned with transfer, Idesbald Goddeeris and Kim Christiaens choose to conduct a comparison. All these articles succeed in giving both very interesting insights into the working of Kenney's 'electromagnetic forces' and in opening up new fields of research.

The only exceptions seem to be the articles by Holger Nehring and Wanda Jarząbek. Their articles provide interesting analyses and insights, but adhere less strictly to the focus on border-crossing contact from below. In switching back and forth between the 'lower' level of social movements and individuals and the 'higher' level of high politics they tell a relevant, but partly more conventional and familiar story.

Good examples of the new approaches and insights of this volume are the articles of Tomáš Vilimek, Kacper Szulecki, Julia Metger, and Bent Boel. Tomáš Vilimek's article probably fits best in the tradition of Kenney's book of 2002 about the transnational ties between Eastern European oppositional movements. Vilimek zooms in on the mutual perception of, and exchange of ideas between, the East German and Czechoslovak opposition. Still the links to Western movements are not absent from this article. He rightfully stresses that contact within Eastern Europe was often possible only through mediation by sympathisers in the West.

These East-West contacts that Vilimek and Kenney shortly dwell upon as a necessary background and interesting intermezzo, merit more research in themselves. Kacper Szulecki recognises the importance of this topic. In his contribution he gives an excellent analysis of the difficult dialogue between Western peace activists and Eastern European oppositionists. He shows the great differences in opinion on crucial issues such as peace and human rights on both sides of the Iron Curtain and how this influenced the debate that intensified in the later 1980s. He rightfully calls 1985 a 'tipping point of a Europe-wide cooperation for peace and human rights' (p. 199).

Julia Metger introduces Western correspondents in Moscow as transnational actors between East and West. In this way she sheds light on an important and little researched group of mediators between both blocs. Furthermore she shows an eye for detail that is crucial in conducting successful transnational research. Not only does she study the growing contact between the Moscow dissidents and the foreign correspondents, but also the way this contact is influenced by their practical working conditions and later on expressed in the changing content and semantics of the newspaper articles.

Bent Boel researches the reaction of Western Social Democracy to Eastern European dissidence. In this transnational and comparative form this is a rather new topic [1]. His article invites us to look beyond the - partly rightful but also all too easy - judgmental tone that is very common in studies about Western Social Democracy and the Eastern European opposition. If one switches the focus from Poland, where it is usually directed, to Czechoslovakia, a more nuanced judgement is possible. Social Democrats from different countries who failed to react adequately to the developments in Poland, often had warm contacts with Czechoslovak émigrés and the opposition in the country itself. This asks for more comparative and explanatory research [2]. Despite the fact that he wants to leave behind the judgmental tone, he also has to conclude that established parties played only a small role in the dialogue from below between East and West in the 1970s and 1980s.

This clearly shows the importance of this book. Because the traditional, established protagonists of historical accounts were largely absent from it, the story of how actors in Eastern and Western societies found each other long before 1989 is not likely to be told in the Cold War handbooks. The transnational ties of the opposition and the East-West dialogue from below teach us important lessons about the existence of a dialogue between European societies long before the division of Europe came to an end. This book is a valuable introduction to this relatively new topic and offers many interesting new insights and useful historiographical overviews. For the historian interested in a transnational approach to both the dissidence and the East-West dialogue this book is indispensable; at least until more extensive monographs appear. The research in this volume is promising enough to create a strong wish that more will follow.

[1] Another very recent comparative study is: Bernd Rother, 'Mieszane odczucia – reakcja zachodnioeuropejskich socjaldemokratów na powstanie "Solidarności", in: Paweł Jaworski, Łukasz Kamiński ed., Świat wobec "Solidarności" 1980–1989 (Warsaw 2013) 242-253.

[2] These closer connections between social democrats and the Czechoslovak opposition are also shown in a more national context in Bernd Rother, 'Zwischen Solidarität und Friedenssicherung. Willy Brandt und Polen in den 1980er Jahren', in: Friedhelm Boll, Krzysztof Ruchniewicz ed., "Nie mehr eine Politik über Polen hinweg". Willy Brandt und Polen (Bonn 2010) 220-263 and Christie Miedema, 'Laveren tussen ontspanning en solidariteit. De PvdA en de FNV ten tijde van de Poolse crisis', Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 126 (2013) no. 3, 363-377.