“This remarkable book [A Cardboard Castle?] documents in fascinating detail the rise and fall of the Warsaw Treaty organisation – an alliance of unfree nations press-ganged into military collaboration over forty years. How it came about, did its business, and eventually imploded is the story of my lifetime – and that of many others who were affected by it. This is therefore not just a story for experts or historians – it is a chronology of significance and an era we must never forget".