The book "Modern Bulgaria: From the Eastern Bloc to the European Union" examines the contemporary history of Bulgaria through the lens of the profound political, economic, social, and cultural changes imposed on Bulgaria and throughout Eastern Europe by the confrontation that began to emerge during World War II.

This confrontation manifested openly after the war, between global ideologies in the East and the West, between Soviet-type socialism and liberal democracy, and within the geopolitical strategies of the USA and the Soviet Union, as well as the nation-states and globalization. These global trends forced Bulgaria to navigate a long and painful path: first, from a traditional Eastern European society to Soviet-type modernization, and then to experience a no less painful transformation into a Western European-type society with political pluralism and a market economy under globalization conditions.

The first post-war transition has concluded, and its human cost and social-economic implications can now be historically assessed. Despite disagreements about exactly when the second transition ended, it can also be considered complete now. However, its evaluation is no easier because we, the contemporaries, are still hostages to unrelenting political passions.

Historians can and must provide their assessment of what is taking place, provided that it is based on accessible documents and uses specific methods of historical analysis.