<p>This volume of Modern Political Systems is dedicated to the proposition that it is no longer valid or profitable to study comparative politics within an essentially North American and European centered frame of reference.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that the most important step taken by Gorbachev in his perestroika was his introduction of glasnost at the beginning of 1987.</p>
<p>One day recently, while the manuscript for the Second Edition of this book was being prepared, the Washington Post carried stories with the hedAClines.</p>
<p>By the nineteenth century, the once proud mistres of the world, Spain, fell into a state of apathy and decadence.</p>