Menu
The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain
Top of the pile
82
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
83/100Critics
81/100Scholars
Author:
Matthew Longo
Publisher:
W. W. Norton & Company
Date:
November 7, 2023
In August 1989, a group of Hungarian activists organized a picnic on the border of Hungary and Austria. But this was not an ordinary picnicâit was located on the dangerous militarized frontier known as the Iron Curtain. Tacit permission from the highest state authorities could be revoked at any moment. On wisps of rumor, thousands of East German "vacationers" packed Hungarian campgrounds, awaiting an opportunity, fearing prison, surveilled by lurking Stasi agents. The Pan-European Picnic set the stage for the greatest border breach in Cold War history: hundreds crossed from the Communist East to the longed-for freedom of the West.
What The Reviewers Say
An elegantly crafted account of an extraordinary but largely forgotten August 1989 gathering.
Captivating.
Extensively documented, well written, and thoughtful in its consideration of what freedom means, this book is an informative and engaging history of the event, its origins, and the aftermath. A much-needed reminder of the inexhaustibility of the human quest for personal and collective freedom..
