Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Derek Sayer
The Coasts of Bohemia
. A very readable cultural history, concentrating on Bo-
hemia and Prague, which aims to dispel the ignorance shown by the Shakespearean quote of
the title, and particularly illuminating on the subject of twentieth-century artists.
Kieran Williams
The Prague Spring and its Aftermath: Czechoslovak Politics, 1968-70
.
Drawing on declassified archives, this topic analyses the attempted reforms under Dubček
and takes a new look at the Prague Spring.
Elizabeth Wiskemann
Czechs and Germans
. Researched and written in the build-up to-
wards Munich, this is the most fascinating and fair treatment of the Sudeten problem. Metic-
ulous in her detail, vast in her scope, Wiskemann manages to suffuse the weighty text with
enough anecdotes to keep you gripped.
ESSAYS, MEMOIRS AND BIOGRAPHIES
Margarete Buber-Neumann
Milena
. A moving biography of Milena Jesenská, one of in-
terwar Prague's most beguiling characters, who befriended the author while they were both
interned in Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Karel Čapek
Talks with T.G. Masaryk
. Čapek was a personal (and political) friend of Mas-
aryk, and his diaries, journals, reminiscences and letters give great insights into the man who
personified the First Republic.
Helen Epstein
Where She Came From: A Daughter's Search for her Mother's History
.
DaughterofaHolocaustsurvivor,theauthortracestheeffectsofanti-Semitismthroughthree
generations of women.
PatrickLeighFermor
A Time of Gifts
. The first volume of Leigh Fermor's trilogy based on
his epic walk along the Rhine and Danube rivers in 1933-34. In the last quarter of the topic
he reaches Czechoslovakia, indulging in a quick jaunt to Prague before crossing the border
into Hungary. Written forty years later in dense, luscious and highly crafted prose, it's an
evocative and poignant insight into the culture of
Mitteleuropa
between the wars.
TimothyGartonAsh
We The People: The Revolutions of 89
.Apersonal,anecdotal, eyewit-
ness account of the Velvet Revolution (and the events in Poland, Berlin and Budapest). By
far the most compelling of all the post-1989 books. Published as
The Magic Lantern
in the
US.
Patricia Hampl
A Romantic Education
. This American author went to Prague in the 1980s
in search of her Czech roots and the contrasting cultures of East and West; the topic was re-
issued and updated in 1999 to mark the tenth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution.
Václav Havel
The first essay in
Living in Truth is
“Power of the Powerless”, Havel's lucid,
damning indictment of the inactivity of the Czechoslovak masses in the face of “normal-
ization”.
Disturbing the Peace
is probably Havel's most accessible work: a series of auto-
biographical questions and answers in which he talks interestingly about his childhood, the
