The Warsaw Pact Reconsidered. International Relations in Eastern Europe, 1955-1969

The Warsaw Pact is generally regarded as a mere instrument of Soviet power. In the 1960s the alliance nevertheless evolved into a multilateral alliance, in which the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact members gained considerable scope for manoeuvre. In The Warsaw Pact Reconsidered. International Relations in Eastern Europe, 1955-1969, Dr Laurien Crump examines to what extent the Warsaw Pact inadvertently provided its members with an opportunity to assert their own interests, emancipate themselves from the Soviet grip, and influence Soviet bloc policy.

Laurien Crump traces this development through six thematic case studies, which deal with such well known events as the building of the Berlin Wall, the Sino-Soviet Split, the Vietnam War, the nuclear question, and the Prague Spring. By interpreting hitherto neglected archival evidence from archives in Berlin, Bucharest, and Rome, and approaching the Soviet alliance from a radically novel perspective, the book offers unexpected insights into international relations in Eastern Europe, while shedding new light on a pivotal period in the Cold War.

Laurien Crump is Assistant Professor in the History of International Relations. She is the winner of Utrecht University's prestigious Teaching Talent Prize. She has finished her doctoral thesis on the multilateralisation of the Warsaw Pact in September 2013. She obtained her doctorate 'Cum Laude' (with distinction) in January 2014.

• Title: The Warsaw Pact Reconsidered. International Relations in Eastern Europe, 1955-1969
• Author: Laurien Crump
• ISBN: 978-0-415-69071-3
• Publisher: 2015, Routledge