This book, the most thoroughly researched & accurate history of Czechoslovakia to appear in English, tells the story of the country from its founding in 1918 to partition in 1992
- from fledgling democracy through Nazi occupation, Communist rule, invasion by the Soviet Union to
- at last
- democracy again. The common Western view of Czechoslovakia has been that of a small nation which was sacrificed at Munich in 1938, betrayed to the Soviets in 1948 & which rebelled heroically against the repression of the Soviet Union during the Prague Spring of 1968. Mary Heimann dispels these myths & shows how intolerant nationalism & an unhelpful sense of victimhood led Czech & Slovak authorities to discriminate against minorities, compete with the Nazis to persecute Jews & Gypsies & pave the way for the Communist police state. She also reveals Alexander Dubcek, held to be a national hero & standard-bearer for democracy, as an unprincipled apparatchik. Well written, revisionist & accessible, this groundbreaking book should become the standard history of Czechoslovakia for years to come.