Michael Malice

And as a result of this, Poland liberalized and freed itself fairly easily and with a minimum of bloodshed in 89.

And there was this whole argument for the Vietnam War with something called domino theory, which is if you lose Vietnam, then you're going to lose Laos, then you lose Cambodia.

One by one, the countries are going to turn communist like dominoes.

But people didn't realize the reverse was true because after Poland liberalized, then you have Hungary, then you have Czechoslovakia, then you had East Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

So it's a great thing because as this is happening,

The people are looking around and they're like, wait, that's it?

This has got to be a trick.

And it wasn't a trick.

So one of my favorite books, which was a big inspiration for this one, was by my favorite historian.

I apologize to David Petruscia and Arthur Herman, my second and third.

They're tied.

But Victor Sebastian wrote a book called Revolution 1989.

And he just talked about that year and how all these countries, one after another, liberalized.

And it's just such a beauty.

And none of them thought this was possible.

One of my favorite, favorite moments in this book is Helmut Kohl, who was the head of West Germany, is in Warsaw with Lech Walesa discussing the Berlin Wall.

And Lech Walesa's like, I don't think it's going to be around for another few years.

And Helmut Kohl laughs in his face.

And he goes, look, you're young.

This isn't how things work.