After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions. Edited by Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 272p. $60.00.

Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss's edited volume constitutes a useful introduction to important research frontiers in the analysis of postcommunist polities. The editors explicitly set the contributors the task of transcending conventional (post-)Soviet Studies and contributing to a social science analysis of formerly communist polities. Through that lens, “legacies” of the old regimes are important inasmuch as causal mechanisms can be spelled out that show their continuing relevance for the dynamic reconfiguration of politics in the region.