Economic development of Eastern and Western Europe over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries obviously differed, but not to the extent that historians or economists have frequently imagined. Put simply, the economic histories of Eastern and Western Europe are frequently viewed according to either region's differing political organizations, with the capitalist West opposed to the Communist East, but in reality, the period of time defined by the rise of the Iron Curtain represents less of a competition between two ideologically opposed economic systems and more of a bubble in time, where the economic development of either region briefly parted ways before rushing back together at the end of the Cold War. The same kind of oligarchical capitalism that has tended to define Western Europe reins in Eastern Europe, and the differences are matters of style, rather than substance. By comparing and contrasting the economic development in Eastern and...
[ View Full Essay]