This clear, objective introduction to the politics of Czechoslovakia and the successor Czech and Slovak Republics provides a comprehensive analysis of Czechoslovakia in the postcommunist period. Carol Leff builds a framework for understanding the dynamics of the triple transition: democratization, marketization, and a national transformation that has reconfigured the dynamic between state and nation. She shows how the interaction of these three transformational agendas has shaped Czechoslovakia's development, ultimately culminating in the paradoxical disintegration of a state that most of its...