Hungary’s Cold War: International Relations from the End of World War II to the Fall of the Soviet Union. By Csaba Békés.

From the very first sentence, the author emphasizes that his work is the fruit of the 'archive revolution' that began following the collapse of the Communist regimes in East Central Europe in 1989.Indeed, the accessibility of archival materials from former Soviet bloc countries has opened up tremendous opportunities for historians, and Békés takes full advantage of this opportunity.His book offers a new interpretation of the Cold War period from 1945 to 1990 (or, according to Békés, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991), outlining its theoretical frameworks and introducing numerous new concepts based on over thirty years of persistent archival research.His theoretical assertions are primarily grounded in careful analysis of Hungarian, American, and British archival documents, as well as published Soviet sources, rather than being purely theoretical constructs, as the author regularly reminds his readers.Békés briefly lists his theoretical innovations and new interpretations in the introduction, and then elaborates on them in detail within the main chapters, embedding them within historical contexts.Here are some examples:• Regarding the Sovietization of Eastern and Central Europe, Békés argues that it was neither the cause nor the consequence of the Cold War confrontation.However, he emphasizes that the process began as early as 1944, with local Communist parties assuming dominant positions in every country in the region by 1945-1946.He interprets the gradual nature of Sovietization as a gesture by Stalin to ensure Western, especially American, cooperation for as long as possible.