Pond, Elizabeth (Elizabeth Ann Pond)

PERSONAL:

Born in Westfield, NJ; daughter of Alfred and Lois Pond. Education: Principia College, B.A.; Harvard University, M.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Germany.

CAREER:

Freelance writer in Eastern Europe, 1964-66; Christian Science Monitor, Boston, MA, Europe sub-editor, 1966-68, correspondent in Saigon, Vietnam, Tokyo, Japan, and Moscow, U.S.S.R., 1968-76, correspondent in Bonn, West Germany, 1977-88; Washington Quarterly, correspondent in Germany.

MEMBER:

International Institute for Strategic Studies, Council on Foreign Relations.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Alicia Patterson fellow in Vietnam, 1969-70; Dumont Citation from University of California, Los Angeles, 1969, for coverage of the 1968 Prague Spring and Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia; National Endowment for the Humanities fellow, University of Michigan, 1976-77; Foreign Press Club citation, 1982, for coverage of European nuclear balance and arms control; shared Forum Award, 1987, for series "Nuclear Power after Chernobyl"; Twentieth Century Fund grant, 1988-89.

WRITINGS:

From the Yaroslavsky Station: Russia Perceived, Universe Books (New York, NY), 1981, published as Russia Perceived: A Trans-Siberian Journey, Gollancz (London, England), 1981, revised edition, 1988.

After the Wall: American Policy toward Germany, Priority Press (New York, NY), 1990.

Beyond the Wall: Germany's Road to Unification, Brookings Institution Press (Washington, DC), 1993.

(With David Schoenbaum) The German Question and Other German Questions, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1996.

The Rebirth of Europe, Brookings Institution Press (Washington, DC), 1999, 2nd edition, 2002.

Friendly Fire: The Near-Death of the Transatlantic Alliance, European Union Studies Association (Pittsburgh, PA), 2004.

Endgame in the Balkans: Regime Change, European Style, Brookings Institution Press (Washington, DC), 2006.

Contributor to works by others, including Indochina in Conflict, edited by Joseph J. Zasloff and Alan E. Goodman, Lexington Books, 1972; Der Gefesselte Riese (title means "The Chained Giant"), edited by Ramesh Jaura, Georg H. Fuerboeck, and others, 1981; and Compton's Encyclopedia; contributor to periodicals in the United States, Germany, and Japan, including Foreign Affairs, Atlantic, Ms., and Nation.

SIDELIGHTS:

Elizabeth Pond told CA: "I wrote From the Yaroslavsky Station: Russia Perceived out of penance for all the things I never had the time or space to explore as a Moscow correspondent—to see how the Russian experience, yearnings, habits, and politics fit together or didn't fit together. I wrote the 1988 revision to put the phenomenon of Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev in that setting. Present at the Second Creation continues the quest, looking at what Gorbachev means by reclaiming Russia's European longings, what Hungary and Poland mean by reclaiming their European heritage, and how Germany is going to manage its third rise in power without setting off a world war this time."

The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and Pond wrote two books about the aftermath of that event, After the Wall: American Policy toward Germany, and Beyond the Wall: Germany's Road to Unification. In the latter, she begins by providing a detailed description of the day the wall came down and the passions of the East Germans who cried for access to West Berlin, which had been denied them for nearly thirty years. Pond elaborates on the courage that led to this event, the joyous celebrations that followed, and the unification of Germany in 1990.

An Economist reviewer commented that in the first 224 pages, Pond provides "a reliable and readable guide to Germany's zig-zag trek to unity over four decades. Despite her West German base, she proves expert on East German power centres, including the Stasi (secret police), the politburo and the Protestant church." Europe contributor Wanda Menke-Gluckert concluded by writing: "Beyond the Wall is an engrossing, fascinating ‘second draft of history’ and an agglomeration of wonders that pulled the wall down, ended the cold war, and tore apart the Soviet empire."

Pond's The German Question and Other German Questions, written with David Schoenbaum, is a study of Helmut Kohl, the longest-serving leader of post-war Germany.

The Rebirth of Europe is Pond's examination of the European Monetary Union (EMU), which was later responsible for the euro, the single monetary unit used by all members of the European Union (EU). She looks at EU relations with the United States and with the French, Germans, and British. In this book she forecasts the success of the EU in solidifying the European states.

Friendly Fire: The Near-death of the Transatlantic Alliance is a volume of Pond's observations on the decline of relations between Europe and the United States. She examines disputes over trade, the International Criminal Court, the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, the Kyoto Protocol, and Iraq. She writes of the ways in which the varying positions on each of these issues make it difficult, in some cases, to come to agreement and notes that this has resulted in the widest gap in United States-European relations since the 1960s.

In Endgame in the Balkans: Regime Change, European Style, Pond studies the affect of potential membership on the Baltic nations and the EU. In order to become members, she notes that Romania, Kosovo, Croatia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro must put reforms in place that are counter to traditional historic thinking. Pond relied on hundreds of interviews in the Balkan region in coming to her conclusions as to the difficulty of a smooth integration of the Balkans into the EU. An Internet Bookwatch reviewer described this volume as "a serious-minded and candid inquiry."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, December 1993, J.W. Peterson, review of Beyond the Wall: Germany's Road to Unification, p. 666.

Christian Science Monitor, November 9, 1981, Earl W. Foell, review of From the Yaroslavsky Station: Russia Perceived, p. 1; August 16, 1993, Ruth Walker, review of Beyond the Wall, p. 13; December 9, 1999, review of The Rebirth of Europe, p. 21.

Contemporary European History, July, 1998, Jan Muller, review of The German Question and Other German Questions, p. 271.

Economist, July 3, 1982, review of From the Yaroslavsky Station, p. 76; July 10, 1993, review of Beyond the Wall, p. 112; July 10, 1993, review of Beyond the Wall, p. 84; November 16, 1996, review of The German Question and Other German Questions, p. 8.

Europe, October, 1993, Wanda Menke-Gluckert, review of Beyond the Wall, p. 46.

For a Change, December 1, 2000, review of Rebirth of Europe, p. 18.

Foreign Affairs, spring, 1991, Gregory F. Treverton, review of After the Wall: American Policy toward Germany; November 1, 1993, Fritz Stern, review of Beyond the Wall, p. 167; March 1, 1997, Stanley Hoffmann, review of The German Question and Other German Questions, p. 186; May, 1999, Stanley Hoffman, review of The Rebirth of Europe, p. 140; January 1, 2007, Robert Legvold, review of Endgame in the Balkans: Regime Change, European Style, p. 171.

International Affairs, January, 1994, Jonathan Osmond, review of Beyond the Wall, p. 169.

International Journal, summer, 2004, David G. Haglund, review of Friendly Fire: The Near-Death of the Transatlantic Alliance.

Internet Bookwatch, March, 2007, review of Endgame in the Balkans.

Journal of Modern History, September, 2001, review of Beyond the Wall, p. 617.

Library Journal, October 1, 1981, Carol Rasmussen, review of From the Yaroslavsky Station, p. 1920; June 1, 1993, Peggy Spitzer Christoff, review of Beyond the Wall, p. 160.

Los Angeles Times, July 15, 1982, review of From the Yaroslavsky Station.

New York Review of Books, January 13, 1994, Gordon A. Craig, review of Beyond the Wall, p. 36.

New York Times Book Review, October 6, 1981, John Leonard, review of From the Yaroslavsky Station, p. 9; November 29, 1981, Elizabeth Goodman, review of From the Yaroslavsky Station, p. 15; December 5, 1982, review of From the Yaroslavsky Station, p. 71.

Publishers Weekly, September 4, 1981, review of From the Yaroslavsky Station, p. 53; May 10, 1993, review of Beyond the Wall, p. 62; July 25, 1994, review of Beyond the Wall, p. 48.

Quill and Quire, October 1981, review of Russia Perceived, p. 44.

Reference & Research Book News, November, 1993, review of Beyond the Wall, p. 11; August, 1999, review of The Rebirth of Europe, p. 115; August, 2004, review of Friendly Fire, p. 295.

Slavic Review, summer, 1994, Melvin Croan, review of Beyond the Wall: Germany's Road to Unification.

Soviet Studies, January, 1982, review of From the Yaroslavsky Station.

Survival, spring, 1995, Wolfgang F. Schlor, review of Beyond the Wall; winter, 1996, Steven Muller, review of The German Question and Other German Questions.

Times (London, England), July 9, 1981, review of From the Yaroslavsky Station.

Times Literary Supplement, May 19, 1995, Roger Morgan, review of Beyond the Wall, p. 26; July 14, 2000, review of The Rebirth of Europe, p. 10; September 28, 2007, "Europe by Osmosis," p. 31.

Washington Post Book World, December 27, 1981, review of From the Yaroslavsky Station.