Book excerpt: This account of women's position before and after the demise of state socialism in Eastern Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary shows how issues of gender are at the heart of potentially explosive processes of social and political transformation. This new edition takes account of developments since the mid-1990s - in abortion legislation, political representation and the embryonic women's movement - and includes updated statistical information to provide an incisive sociological, economic and political analysis of the situation.