It is now possible while located in an office or home to search large journal collections, a Central Intelligence Agency world map database and world fact book, federal grant programs, law library catalogs, United States Supreme Court decisions, public opinion poll data, hundreds of general and specialized library catalogs, and many other information sources via computer. This article is intended for those who presently make little use of computers but who want to become familiar with the advantages and likely problems associated with performing such searches using one of the databases available online (by telephone line) on the Internet and five commercial online services. The article also discusses other uses for telephone-computer combinations such as electronic mail (e-mail).

During 1989, as Eastern Europe's communist regimes abdicated power in the face of popular coups, Daniel Nelson was asked by a journalist if such changes meant a career change for scholars of communist systems. He answered affirmatively: if such scholars had examined these regimes only as communist systems; yet, for scholars who had studied politics in the arena of Eastern Europe, he said, a full and challenging career lay ahead.

This speculation has since given way to certainty. Comparative communism as a subfield of political analysis passed away during 1989, while the comparative politics of Eastern Europe was rejuvenated.

The Birth and Death of Comparative Communism

Within a few years after Mikhail Gorbachev inaugurated changes that he could not control, practitioners of comparative communism were confronted with new conditions for their research and analysis. Notwithstanding the continuation of communist rule in China, Cuba, North Korea, and Southeast Asia, the subfield lost its raison d'etre. Most of the premises that had generated a subfield of comparative endeavors, no matter how rudimentary they may have sometimes been, became moot.

Comparative communism had come and gone. But, what had comparative communism sought to accomplish? How well did scholars and policy-analysts succeed? Was there any lasting contribution to political studies?

In the late 1940s when communist parties gained power in Eastern Europe, China, and North Korea, the impression was that a single form of totalitarian government had been imposed from Moscow. The “Soviet bloc” aggregated all states' and leaders' behavior within the image of rigid uniformity. Consequently, broadly comparative analyses and rigorous tests of hypotheses were unnecessary. Most scholarly attention appeared to be driven by Western foreign policy interest.

These should be bracing times for students and scholars of European studies. The tumultuous events of the past five years—from the collapse of the Soviet empire and the unification of Germany, to the problematic consolidation of the European Community, and the resurgence of ethnic and religious nationalism—have recast the region's boundaries and have called into question many of the concepts and theories developed by area specialists in the postwar period.

It was with these issues in mind that the Social Science Research Council and the German Marshall Fund of the United States commissioned Sidney Tarrow to produce a report that would identify trends and raise issues of importance to the future of European Studies in the universities and among funders and other concerned organizations. Tarrow's report, Rebirth or Stagnation? European Studies after 1989, was published in June 1993 and has circulated widely among scholars, foundation officers, and university administrators working on the region.

The report finds that Europe's geo-political earthquakes pose fresh challenges for the way we think about and teach international and comparative politics. The transformation of Europe's social, economic, and political terrain has important implications not only for the region but for the international environment as a whole. Recent developments are also significant from the standpoint of university centers and funding organizations attempting to effectively intervene in an era of multiple demands and fiscal retrenchment. Virtually every institution of higher education in this country is trying to do more with fewer resources, and interdisciplinary programs—such as centers of European studies—may offer unusually inviting targets for budget-cutting administrators. As a result of these pressures, the support structure necessary for effective training and research is experiencing considerable strains.

In a recent attempt to get caught up on the important events occurring in the former Soviet Union, I rediscovered the importance not only of learning data but of exploring the ideology behind the data. In an effort to update my students on the vast changes in our country's former adversary, I read as many diverse sources as possible in order to make sense of the events. Out of this came the predictable, yet fascinating, conclusion that political “facts” may be perceived so differently by observers with diverse ideological perspectives that the facts themselves appear to change depending upon who is describing them. I soon realized I was doing both substantive research into the “facts” and an equally important investigation into the biases underlying the reporting of the “facts.”