REVIEWS:
"the immediate attraction of Heimann's book is that readers unfamiliar with Czechoslovak history will come away with a clear sense of it ... this is truly a history of Czechoslovakia, not just of Czechs and Slovaks in the twentieth century"
-Kieran Williams, The Times Literary Supplement

"...offers an interesting insight into Czechoslovak history and repeatedly reminds the reader of the differences in perceiving political developments from the Czech and the Slovak points of view"
-David Vaughan, Respekt, 11 January 2010 (quote translated from the original Czech)

"a work of quite exceptional importance for the Czech nation"
-Petr Adler, Neviditelný pes, 23 December 2009 (quote translated from the original Czech)

"Heimann's account is important reading for any student of Balkan history"
-Marcus Tanner, Balkan Insight, 14 December 2009

"...powerfully revisionist account"
-Matthew Reisz, Times Higher Education, 3 December 2009
 
"...stimulates interest in a country often ignored in the great sweep of 20th-century European history"
-Stefan Wagstyl, Financial Times, 5 December 2009

"Heimann ably highlights the holes and contradictions in Czechoslovak history. Her archival research and attention to detail is exemplary"
-The Economist, 21 November 2009

"the result of careful, factual research, its contentions based on systematic archival documentation … Convincing in its arguments and brilliantly and engagingly written … makes a brilliant contribution to debates on the position and fate of the Czech nation, now and in the past" -Jan Čulík, Literární noviny xx, 44, 26 October 2009 (quotes translated from the original Czech)

DESCRIPTION:
This book, the most thoroughly researched and accurate history of Czechoslovakia to appear in English, tells the story of the country from its founding in 1918 to partition in 1992 - from fledgling democracy through Nazi occupation, Communist rule, invasion by the Soviet Union to - at last - democracy again. The common Western view of Czechoslovakia has been that of a small nation which was sacrificed at Munich in 1938, betrayed to the Soviets in 1948 and which rebelled heroically against the repression of the Soviet Union during the Prague Spring of 1968. Mary Heimann dispels these myths and shows how intolerant nationalism and an unhelpful sense of victimhood led Czech and Slovak authorities to discriminate against minorities, compete with the Nazis to persecute Jews and Gypsies and pave the way for the Communist police state. She also reveals Alexander Dubcek, held to be a national hero and standard-bearer for democracy, as an unprincipled apparatchik. Well written, revisionist and accessible, this groundbreaking book should become the standard history of Czechoslovakia for years to come.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:
Mary Heimann is senior lecturer in the History Department at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland.

SUBJECT CLASSIFICATIONS:
European history: from c 1900 -

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Illustrations: 20 illustrations
Number of Pages: 400
Dewey: 943.7032