Café Europa

Writing about her life in native socialist Yugoslavia, Drakulić compares her life with those of people living within the Warsaw Pact countries. She notes that she always felt superior to them, as Josip Broz Tito's regime permitted both a higher standard of living and greater freedom of movement. Despite these amenities, to Drakulić Yugoslavia was still just a bigger cage.

While visiting Eastern European countries like Romania and Bulgaria Drakulić sees the degradation of national infrastructure, such as sewage systems. This decline, she concludes, is due in part to a post-communist mentality.

According to Drakulić, the newly liberated states of Eastern Europe aspire to rejoin Western European society, which they were cut off from for more than 50 years after the Soviet occupation. However, the NATO and European Union countries do not feel the same way, and "Europe" can be seen as merely a construction in the mind of Eastern Europe. However, Drakulić warns, "We are all Albanians", and cannot disregard a common heritage.

Despite the removal of communist governments throughout Europe, Drakulić is dismayed to find that in her homeland of Croatia the vacuum has not been filled by a completely democratic government. President Tudjman rules with an authoritarian grip, and much of the bureaucracy is full of former apparatchiks. Despite the more recent communist past, in Drakulić's view Croatia's leaders call upon the memory of the fascist Croatian state of World War II.