This comparative study by Zuzana Polácková and Peter C. van Duin, a collection of essays, is a revelation, especially for students of European authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, and, furthermore, anybody interested in European history. Why? The authors, respected European academics and historians, take the reader into a new world: the Iberian-Slavic world. Nobody has done this before. This volume, unique in its comparative method and far-reaching scope, includes topical issues such as the world of Iberian-Slavic relations, the different Latin-Romanic Iberian and Slavic cultures, and socio-economic issues. From this comparative study, the reader learns a lot about the position of Portuguese and Slovak women in society; religious issues such as Catholicism in Portugal and Protestantism in Slovakia; and the political regimes of Portugal under authoritarian President Antonio de Oliverio Salazar (1889-1970) and Communist ruled Slovakia-Czechoslovakia under PM and President in unisono Gustáv Husák (1913-1991). -Josette Baer, Professor, UZH University of Zurich
Dr Pieter Cornelis van Duin, PhD, studied History and Philosophy at Leiden University. Since 2000, he worked at the University of Leiden and the University of Cape Town. He is an Honorary Fellow of the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Currently, Pieter C. van Duin is an independent historian, working on problems of ethnicity and social conflict.
Dr Zuzana Polácková, PhD, studied History, Political Science in Bratislava, Brno. Since 2000, she is Senior Research Fellow, Associate Professor of history and political science at the Institute of History of the Slovak Aademy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia.
Dr Slavomír Michálek, DrSc, is Director of the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava.