Despatches from the Barricades Book

There will be many books about the extraordinary events of 1989-90. but Despatches from the Barricades is unique. It deals with all the revolutions that took place in that time, in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania; with the revolution that failed, when the students of China took over Tiananmen Square and were massacred: with the peaceful revolution in South Africa which led to the release of Nelson Mandela; and with the most fundamental change of all, which made all the others possible, the revolution in the Soviet Union created by Mikhail Gorbachev.John Simpson, the Foreign Affairs Editor of the BBC. was present at every one of these events - possibly the only person in the world who was. He knows, and has interviewed, many of the chief participants; and he writes from the perspective of twenty years' reporting on world events as a foreign correspondent.He traces the common factors between each of the revolutions of 1989, observing the interaction between the men and women involved. He has uncovered a number of elements which have a considerable bearing on what happened, from the question of who really died in Tiananmen Square to the personal involvement of Mikhail Gorbachev in a number of the key decisions in Eastern Europe. His own experiences in each of the revolutions have been woven into the wider pattern of events. Published with over 90 photographs and 12 maps. Despatches from the Barricades promises to be the most readable and authoritative account yet of the most remarkable ten months of this century.Read More