Death of the Dark Hero

Compare retailer offers

About this product

The title is taken from an extraordinarily prophetic observation made by Heinrich Heine in 1842. 'Communism, though little discussed now and loitering in hidden garrets on miserable straw pallets, is the dark hero destined for a great, if temporary, role in the modern tragedy . . .' For three years, from early 1987, David Selbourne travelled the countries of Eastern Europe as the momentum of reform gathered pace and ended in uprising and revolution. This is a record of those sensational events, the most profound since the end of the Second World War. What happened and why? The historic answers were revealed by the protagonists themselves as events unfolded, in a period in which former outlaws became heroes, leaders of the old order were vanquished, and nations were liberated from thraldom. Combining fine observation and a thorough grasp of the issues involved, the writer , by skilful questioning, elicited from some of the leading actors in these dramas their fears, hopes and reactions to events around them. The fall of communism in Europe was epoch-making. David Selbourne's account, first published in 1990, transcended mere journalism then: it reads now as a vivid and authoritative

More from Faber & Faber