Picnic: A Rush for Freedom and the Collapse of Communism

Winner of the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Writing

One of Slate's Ten Best Books of 2023 • A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2023

The gripping story of a collective passion for freedom that shook the world.

In August 1989, a group of Hungarian activists organized a picnic on the border of Hungary and Austria. But this was not an ordinary picnic―it was located on the dangerous militarized frontier known as the Iron Curtain. Tacit permission from the highest state authorities could be revoked at any moment. On wisps of rumor, thousands of East German “vacationers” packed Hungarian campgrounds, awaiting an opportunity, fearing prison, surveilled by lurking Stasi agents. The Pan-European Picnic set the stage for the greatest border breach in Cold War history: hundreds crossed from the Communist East to the longed-for freedom of the West.