This book, released in November 2009, is now considered the definitive account of the political history of 1989–1990. The author did extensive primary research in many archives and brings together the material in a concise 220 pages. Through a detailed account of the power shifts and international debates in Europe after the Berlin Wall fell, Sarotte outlines what happened in the East and West in the context of the development of a new international system, which was in fact not so new at all. The argument traces how the West becomes former without seeing it happen, with huge consequences for the intervening two decades. See in particular Chapter 1, What Changes in Summer and Autumn 1989, and Chapter 4, Prehab Prevails, which argues that despite the ‘heroic aspirations’ of the revolutions, the old western order quickly consolidates power and its networks of military, economic, and cultural power rush into the power vacuum.