The often turbulent history of the Czechs and Slovaks in the 20th Century, leading from the Czechoslovak Republic to four decades of communist rule, ended with the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The independent Czech and Slovak democracies achieved EU membership in 2004. While their political histories under Austrian and Hungarian rule in 19th Century has been widely researched, their intellectual history is still largely unknown, mainly due to a lack of English translations. Preparing Liberty in Central Europe provides a collection of newly translated texts by Czech and Slovak intellectuals and...

This engaging and insightful book is the first historical study in English portraying the lives and fates of Czech women. The seven life stories, ranging from the late 19th century to the present day, expose the often cruel political history of Bohemia (19th century), the Czech lands in Czechoslovakia (20th century), and the Czech Republic (20th-21st century) through the eyes of prominent women whose acts and deeds on behalf of their fellow citizens remain unforgotten in the Czech collective mind. The three chapters and four oral history interviews offer a captivating insight into how the...

Baers biography of the former Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Vladimír Clementis (19021952) is the first historical study on the Communist politician who was executed with Rudolf Slánský and other top Communist Party members after the show trial of 1952. Born in Tisovec, Central Slovakia, Clementis studied law at Charles University in Prague in the 1920s and had his own law firm in Bratislava in the 1930s. After the Munich Agreement of 1938, he went into exile to France and Great Britain, where he worked at the Czechoslovak broadcast at the BBC for the exile government of Edvard Bene. After...