Baltic Sea Region Environmental Protection: "Eastern" Perspectives and InternationalCooperation. by Mikael SandbergReview by: David R. MarplesSlavic Review, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Summer, 1994), pp. 614-616Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2501359 .

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614 Slavic Review

McAdams's analysis is greatly enhanced by the access he gained to archival ma- terials both East and West and the interviews he conducted with ranking officials in Bonn and East Berlin. The study uses all these sources to good effect, although the author sometimes seems to take official protestations too much at face value. In view of the book's overall excellence, it may seem petty to point to the dubious translation of key German terms and to question at least one matter of English usage. In the first instance, a more competent Princeton editor-are scrupulous editors really a thing of the past?-would have caught several misleading renderings, including Rechtsstaat as a "state of laws" rather than a "state under Law." On the second score, what is one to make of McAdams's consistent use throughout the book of the ill-advised word "reunification"? Surely, the gravamen of all McAdams's previous work should have served to suggest that rather than "reunification" what occurred in 1990 was the unification of two highly distinctive and very different Germanies which, in turn, helps explain the socio-economic dilemmas of"united" Germany today.

The "road to unification" is the focus, as well as the subtitle, of Elizabeth Pond's rich study, Beyond the Wall. Written in a vivacious style without so much as a hint of purple prose, Pond's book is an exceptionally good read. Thanks to her analytical powers as well as her literary prowess, Germany's unification comes alive in the in- tersecting German, European, North Atlantic and Soviet settings in which it was en- acted. Pond singles out Chancellor Kohl for the boldness of his initiatives and the astuteness of his timing; she also credits Mikhail Gorbachev with having made it all possible by virtue of his strategic realism, diplomatic flexibility and political savvy. Her greatest praise, however, is reserved for Washington; in her view, the Bush admin- istration deserves top marks for its creative support of Bonn and its active "engage- ment in shaping the circumstances of [German] unification to avoid dangerous in- stability in the transition or in the end result."

Pond's account contains a wealth of fresh material gleaned from interviews with American and German policymakers and other actors ranging from high officials to ordinary citizens. If God-or is it the devil?-is in the details, Pond appears to have gotten them almost all right. (One exception, however, occurs when she implies that art. 146, the provision of the Federal Republic's Basic Law envisioning its supersession by a new constitution adopted by a freely elected all-German constituent assembly, was repealed when, in fact, this article was only amended and the question of its eventual implementation remains the subject of heated partisan controversy.) With respect to the future, Pond's otherwise splendid account may well be faulted for its all too facile optimism, along the lines recently favored by other American well-wishers of Germany (see, for example, Robert Gerald Livingston, "United Germany: Bigger and Better," Foreign Policy, Summer 1992).

Whatever the future of the German-American agenda, to which Elizabeth Pond devotes her final chapter, or the ultimate prospects for united Germany, at home, in Europe and throughout the world, compared to West Germany of yore, the new, bigger Federal Republic of Germany seems fated to be, as Willy Brandt put it, "a different sort of Republic" ("eine andere Republik"). To understand the immediate background, both McAdams's and Pond's books are essential, not only for specialists on Germany but also for all readers in any way interested in the perennial "German Question."

MELVIN CROAN University of Wisconsin, Madison

Baltic Sea Region Environmental Protection: "Eastern" Perspectives and International Co- operation. Ed. Mikael Sandberg. Gdteborg Studies of Russia and Eastern Europe. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1993. xix, 172 pp. Tables. SEK 190.-, paper.

In 1987 two Swedish scholars, Mikael Sandberg, a political scientist, and Walter Gold- berg, an economist, embarked upon a project to investigate environmental consider-

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Book Reviews 615

ations in investment-decision processes of countries bordering the Baltic Sea. In so doing, they solicited the aid of nine specialists in different countries: Poland, the Baltic states, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. The result is this small volume, which at- tempts to bridge a gap in our environmental knowledge through succinct articles that highlight ecological problems and their influence on the respective governments.

Inevitably the book is already outdated. The governments in question were "so- cialist" ones at the time of writing, at least in name, and one (East Germany) is no longer in existence. Heavy emphasis is placed on Poland. Of the thirteen articles that comprise the book, no fewer than five relate specifically to Poland, with a sixth (by Sandberg) that concerns that country indirectly. Nevertheless, the task is a worthy one and the reader will not be disappointed in terms of purely factual information. Indeed a wealth of detail is to be found on the sectors analyzed: emissions that have affected air, water and soil.

The best article in the book is the first chapter by Marek Lubinski entitled simply "Environmental Degradation in Poland." The author examines in some depth air pollution, water economics and land economics, emphasizing in a brief but important paragraph the relationship between environmental degradation and the threat to hu- man life. Putting the causes into context is never an easy matter but he stresses the emergence of what he terms a "techno-bureaucracy" bent on promoting or maintain- ing its own interests, and the lack of consciousness by people of their own role in influencing the state of the environment. His conclusion, that Polish economic devel- opment was achieved at the expense of the environment, might be applied to all republics in or under the influence of the former Soviet Union.

The second chapter, also by Lubiniski, on "Ecological Consequences of Polish Economic Policy in the Transition Period" appears to be superfluous, other than as a chronology of the government's failure to improve the efficiency of the energy sector. In the third chapter, which he has also written, on "Polish Ecological Policy," he outlines what he perceives as a key role for local government, formal and informal ecological associations, and even church institutions in ensuring that ecological con- cerns are met. In fairness, the inclusion of the latter was a reflection of the church's role as an effective counter to the communist government in the late 1980s.

According to Carola Kotyzcka and Heinz Kroske, the GDR was the single worst polluter of all European countries in 1988, largely as a result of its reliance on lignite for energy production, while the upper Ore Mountains encompassed "without any doubt the most heavily damaged forest area of Europe." Looking northward to Lith- uania, Rimvydas Andrikis points out that the Soviet mania for gigantism which led to major environmental problems was a direct result of a defective system of manage- ment. In an essay that is heavily tinged with anti-Soviet sentiment, he maintains that while products were taken from Lithuania "back" to the Soviet Union, environmental effects remained behind. Unfortunately, this paper cries out for some balance. The author lists, for example, the infant mortality rates without providing European or North American average for the reader to glean some perspective.

To some extent the same criticism can be applied to an otherwise useful piece by Jaroslav Stolsa on "Environmental Problems in Czechoslovakia." From today's per- spective, the article concentrates heavily on the Czech as opposed to the Slovak Re- public, but one might hope for more than references to the "horrible inheritance of the past regime" or the drop in the life expectancy of the population "owing to bad organization and quality [sic!]." This paper is interspersed with some useful maps. Neither Stolsa nor his colleagues provide viable long-term solutions to the problems they outline, though the arrival of a market economy and decentralization must clearly have aided matters.

The reader may find him/herself at the end of the book in two frames of mind. First, the book clearly fills a gap in our knowledge regarding the state of environmental degradation in eastern Europe and the Baltic states. Though the material at times makes for dry reading, one is grateful for having such information outlined in system- atic fashion. Some of the data-particularly that pertaining to Estonia and Latvia (Gulyans, Shteinbrook and Reinvald)-have long required dissemination in an En- glish-language format. Further, since problems such as water and air pollution are

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616 Slavic Review

international in nature, there is logic to treating these areas as a whole. Simply put, the areas suffered in common from policies of centralized governments geared to heavy and energy industries that were developed at the expense of local environments, and usually without consultation with regional or local governments.

The second point is rather more serious, namely the quality of writing and gram- mar throughout the book. One accepts that English is not the native language of either the editors or authors, but the introduction alone contains more than 25 spelling errors, not to mention sentence construction that at times appears nonsensical. Thus one sees "discribes," "environental," "exanded," "enivronment" (all on one page), establishing an unfortunate trend that is maintained with irritating consistency throughout the book.

Finally, the book's heavy reliance on statistics does not always permit the reader to comprehend the full extent of the problem. Admittedly, all the European nations have different norms for air, water and land degradation-a fact that became disturb- ingly evident in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident-but one would like to know how levels in eastern Europe compared with those in western Europe and, indeed, whether the apportionment of blame-in this case, almost always on Soviet authori- ties-is significant. Environmental history is, after all, a relatively new subject. All industrialized nations have achieved their present status through blunders and the almost incidental and often unforeseen destruction of nature. And paradoxically, while scholars can point out the principal ecological problems, it is quite often the indus- trialists themselves who are in the best position to find solutions.

In short, the book is an important addition to a growing library on environmental affairs in eastern Europe and the former USSR, but it is not without some serious flaws.

DAVID R. MARPLES University of Alberta

Transition to Democracy in Poland. Ed. Richard F. Staar. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. 271 pp. Index. Tables. $45.00, hard bound.

This work belongs to the genre of "transition" studies that are coming to dominate the fields of political science and sociology in Slavic studies. This genre interprets the events, institutions and behaviors in post-communist countries as though they are transitional phenomena, at present fragmented and in flux, but indicative of a stable future. This future is one in which institutions and values will become fixed and agreed upon, and one in which this agreement will be stable, democratic and "western" in nature. The essays collected here document the changes characterizing the state and the economic system in Poland since 1989, and all either explicitly or implicitly seek sources of stability, democratic forms of governing or the influence of western models in these changes. To this end, the essays are topically organized, their generalizations tentative and presented with broad strokes, and their conclusions provocative rather than guided by methodology.

Some of the contributions are explorations of presumed goals of the "transition," such as a privatized economy; others are examinations of elite conflict over political issues; some clearly advocate a particular policy choice. Thus, the volume is appro- priate for area specialists and graduate students seeking an overview of events and power struggles regarding politics and economics in Poland from 1989 through 1992; the essays are "current histories," presenting a variety of reasons for the trends that they describe and raising questions rather than providing systematic explanation or theoretical breakthroughs.

One drawback of the "transition" framework for explaining the Polish experience since 1989 is illustrated by an observation in the introductory essay by Richard Staar. He notes that "[one] should not anticipate that indigenous communists will return to power in Poland. . ." but the Social Democrats did just that in the September 1993

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