Gale Stokes, editor. From Stalinism to Pluralism A Documentary History of Eastern Europe Since 1945. Oxford University Press, 1996.

A collection of primary-source documents from the Soviet bloc to create a personalized history of Stalinism and beyond in Eastern Europe.

John Connolly, From Peoples Into Nations: A History of Eastern Europe. Princeton University Press, 2020.

A comprehensive history of Eastern Europe from the 18th century to today.

Jussi Hanhimaki and Odd Arne Westad, editors. The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts. Oxford University Press, 2004.

A collection of official and unofficial documents from the Soviet Union to provide a firsthand account of the Cold War era.

William Taubman, Gorbachev, His Life and Times. WW Norton, 2017.

The definitive biography of Mikhail Gorbachev by Pulitzer-Prize winning author William Taubman, who also authored the biography of Nikita Khrushchev.

Katherine Verdery, What Was Socialism And What Comes Next? Princeton University Press, 1996.

A collection of essays that offers an anthropological look at Eastern Europe after the fall of communism.