Ignacs Romsics provides an in-depth account of Hungary's history between the collapse of Communism and the re-emergence of a Hungarian parlimentary republic. Drawing on the debates that have grown out of the political opposition, he focuses on the reformist efforts of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party. Romsics documents the period that brought a resurgence in mutliparty government and established a political and legal basis for the Third Hungarian Republic. Subsequently, in 1990, early measures of the Antall government and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and Comecon ushered in Hungary's decisive political and economic turn to the West. The author provides an additional historical account of economic, social, political, and cultural changes from 1990 to 2006, including a study of the policy regarding ethnic Hungarian minorities in neighboring countries.