A keen observer of culture, Czech writer Vladimir Macura (1945 99) devoted a lifetime to illuminating the myths that defined his nation. The Mystifications of a Nation, the first book-length translation of Macura s work in English, offers essays deftly analyzing a variety of cultural phenomena that originate, Macura argues, in the big bang of the nineteenth-century Czech National Revival, with its celebration of a uniquely Czech identity.
In reflections on two centuries of Czech history, he ponders the symbolism in daily life. Bridges, for example once a force of civilization...