Oscar A. H. Schmitz Boeken

Situated at the cross-roads of Europe, the Czechs have had to live through more of that continent's upheavals than a hard-working and sober people deserves. At many times it has been true that whoever dominated Bohemia was the lord of Europe, at whose heart she lay: and at all times when Europe was subjected to a major-stress reformation, nineteenth-century nationalism, Nazism, Communism – the cracks appeared early and significantly in that country. In much the same way the current European issue – the choice between a sovereign state or a community – has been tested by the Czechs since 1918, when together with the Slovaks they formed an independent Czechoslovakia as one of the States succeeding the Habsburg Empire. By 1968 they had no doubts that loss of economic, political, and human freedom is much too high a price to pay for ‘independence’. The experience of those fifty years adds a fresh interest to the Czechs’ thousand-year-long quest for security in central Europe, often achieved by confederations stemming the advance into that area of powerful neighbours to east and west.Dr Hermann has written a full narrative of the history of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Kingdom which preceded it, and examines certain of its continuing political, economic, and cultural themes. The history of the modern country – the twenty years of independence, the German occupation, the Communist takeover and 1968 and its aftermath – are considered in detail on the basis of personal experience and inside knowledge.