Abstract
November marked the anniversaries of two events that defined the twentieth century: the Bolshevik Revolution (11/7/1917) and the breaching of the Berlin Wall (11/9/1989). Critics bemoaned experts’ failure to predict the demise of the Soviet empire, a process symbolized by that electrifying moment in Berlin twenty years ago. Yet Americans’ true “November surprise” came in 1917, when Americans had little idea what had happened, let alone why. What made our knowledge of 1989 so much better? High on any list is the rise of a new approach to studying the world – area studies – that helped us understand the Soviet threat and can offer lessons for today.