Imposing, Maintaining, and Tearing Open the Iron Curtain: The Cold War and East-Central Europe, 1945-1989, edited by Mark Kramer and Vi t Smetana, provides an in-depth survey of the origins, consolidation, slow erosion, and abrupt demise of the Cold War divisions in Europe after World War II. The contributors to this volume examine how the Cold War kept the continent divided for nearly 45 years, but ultimately came to a largely peaceful end, contrary to expectations.