But for many people who actually lived through the transition, the changes were often disappointing. Perhaps none were more disappointed than the villagers of rural Bulgaria whose very lifestyles and identities were threatened by the transition. Domesticating Revolution explains this unexpected outcome through a detailed study of economic reform in one Bulgarian village, from the beginning of collectivization in the 1940s to decollectivization efforts in the 1990s.Gerald Creed is the only American anthropologist to have conducted extended fieldwork in a single Bulgarian village both during and after the socialist era. This work has enabled him to document the precise connections between socialist practice and postsocialist developments. He suggests that by simply doing what they could to improve their difficult lot under socialism, Bulgarian villagers gradually domesticated the socialist system. This very achievement, however, set the stage for an ambivalent transition after 1989 as villagers sought to defend their earlier gains against new threats. Ironically, they appealed to domesticated socialism in a failed effort to domesticate the transition as well.Domesticating Revolution will force scholars to rethink both their models of state socialism and their interpretations of the transition.

    Her work had already attracted considerable attention, with a special issue of Poetry New Zealand featuring her poems. Her moody, evocative poems brilliantly convey the rootlessness and restlessness of the immigrant, the mingled sense of loss and wonder in the new land, the nostalgia and the longing, the hopes and the memories. The three parts of the book mirror a passage from dislocation to exploration to looking forward, with the last part dominated by the image of the sea. These haunting, powerful poems introduce a fresh and original talent.