Asserts that Prague could well be seen as the capital of the twentieth century, describing how the city has experienced and suffered more ways of being modern than perhaps any other metropolis.

The story of modernity told through a cultural history of twentieth-century Prague Setting out to recover the roots of modernity in the boulevards, interiors, and arcades of the "city of light," Walter Benjamin dubbed Paris "the capital of the nineteenth century." In this eagerly anticipated sequel to his acclaimed Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History, Derek Sayer argues that Prague could well be seen as the capital of the much darker twentieth century. Ranging across twentieth-century Prague's astonishingly vibrant and always surprising human landscape, this richly illustrated cultural history describes how the city has experienced (and suffered) more ways of being modern than perhaps any other metropolis. Located at the crossroads of struggles between democratic, communist, and fascist visions of the modern world, twentieth-century Prague witnessed revolutions and invasions, national liberation and ethnic cleansing, the Holocaust, show trials, and snuffed-out dreams of "socialism with a human face." Yet between the wars, when Prague was the capital of Europe's most easterly parliamentary democracy, it was also a hotbed of artistic and architectural modernism, and a center of surrealism second only to Paris. Focusing on these years, Sayer explores Prague's spectacular modern buildings, monuments, paintings, books, films, operas, exhibitions, and much more. A place where the utopian fantasies of the century repeatedly unraveled, Prague was tailor-made for surrealist André Breton's "black humor," and Sayer discusses the way the city produced unrivaled connoisseurs of grim comedy, from Franz Kafka and Jaroslav Hasek to Milan Kundera and Václav Havel. A masterful and unforgettable account of a city where an idling flaneur could just as easily be a secret policeman, this book vividly shows why Prague can teach us so much about the twentieth century and what made us who we are.

Prague Panoramas examines the creation of Czech nationalism through monuments, buildings, festivals, and protests in the public spaces of the city during the twentieth century. These "sites of memory" were attempts by civic, religious, cultural, and political forces to create a cohesive sense of self for a country and a people torn by war, foreign occupation, and internal strife. The Czechs struggled to define their national identity throughout the modern era. Prague, the capital of a diverse area comprising Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Poles, Ruthenians, and Romany as well as various religious groups including Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, became central to the Czech domination of the region and its identity. These struggles have often played out in violent acts, such as the destruction of religious monuments, or the forced segregation and near extermination of Jews. During the twentieth century, Prague grew increasingly secular, yet leaders continued to look to religious figures such as Jan Hus and Saint Wenceslas as symbols of Czech heritage. Hus, in particular, became a paladin in the struggle for Czech independence from the Habsburg Empire and Austrian Catholicism. Through her extensive archival research and personal fieldwork, Cynthia Paces offers a panoramic view of Prague as the cradle of Czech national identity, seen through a vast array of memory sites and objects. From the Gothic Saint Vitus Cathedral, to the Communist Party's reconstruction of Jan Hus's Bethlehem Chapel, to the 1969 self-immolation of student Jan Palach in protest of Soviet occupation, to the Hoskova plaque commemorating the deportation of Jews from Josefov during the Holocaust, Paces reveals the iconography intrinsic to forming a collective memory and the meaning of being a Czech. As her study discerns, that meaning has yet to be clearly defined, and the search for identity continues today.

Reflections of Prague is the story of how a Czech Jewish family become embroiled in the most tragic and tumultuous episodes of the twentieth century. Through their eyes we see the history of their beloved Prague, a unique European city, and the wider, political forces that tear their lives apart. Their moving story traces the major events, turmoil, oppression and triumphs of Europe through the last hundred years – from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the First World War; from the vibrant artistic and intellectual life of Prague in the times of Kafka, the Capek Brothers and Masaryk to years of hunger in a Polish ghetto and the concentration camps of Hitler; from the tyrannous rule of Stalin to the rekindled hopes of Dubcek and the subsequent Soviet occupation to liberation under Havel. Told from Ivan’s perspective, it is a poignant but uplifting tale that tells of life lived with purpose and conviction, in the face of personal suffering and sacrifice. ‘A remarkable book. This archetypical story of the twentieth century is intertwined with an almost stream-of-consciousness narrative of the history of the Czechs, of Prague, interspersed with samples of exquisite poetry by great contemporary poets. So the narrative flows like Eliot’s sweet Thames full of the debris of tragic lives, of horrors, of moments of beauty and testimonies of love – all against the backdrop of man’s inhumanity.’ Josef Škvorecký ‘A poignant and vivid mémoire of a child searching for traces of his father, lost in the murky ideologies of post war Central Europe. An engrossing book.’ Sir John Tusa

This pocket-sized yet comprehensive guidebook to modern architecture in Prague shows its development from the Art Nouveau and beginnings of the Modern Style at the turn of the 20th century, the unique Cubist buildings from the years before World War I, the "National Style" of the newly established Czechoslovak Republic, the functionalist avant-garde of the inter-war period, the most remarkable examples of post-World War II buildings, and the revival of architectural production after 1989. 200 pages cover 220 buildings spanning the period 1900 to 1997. Each entry contains a descriptive text, period photographs, and selected entries are provided with plans. An indispensable companion for discovering the vast architectural heritage of the Czech capital.

A dramatic account of life in Czechoslovakia's great capital during the Nazi Protectorate With this successor book to Prague in Black and Gold, his account of more than a thousand years of Central European history, the great scholar Peter Demetz focuses on just six short years—a tormented, tragic, and unforgettable time. He was living in Prague then—a "first-degree half-Jew," according to the Nazis' terrible categories—and here he joins his objective chronicle of the city under German occupation with his personal memories of that period: from the bitter morning of March 15, 1939, when Hitler arrived from Berlin to set his seal on the Nazi takeover of the Czechoslovak government, until the liberation of Bohemia in April 1945, after long seasons of unimaginable suffering and pain. Demetz expertly interweaves a superb account of the German authorities' diplomatic, financial, and military machinations with a brilliant description of Prague's evolving resistance and underground opposition. Along with his private experiences, he offers the heretofore untold history of an effervescent, unstoppable Prague whose urbane heart went on beating despite the deportations, murders, cruelties, and violence: a Prague that kept its German- and Czech-language theaters open, its fabled film studios functioning, its young people in school and at work, and its newspapers on press. This complex, continually surprising book is filled with rare human detail and warmth, the gripping story of a great city meeting the dual challenge of occupation and of war.

"The richness of the material and its skillful assembly make this a very readable volume ... revealing a wonderful range of perspective, from personal, intimate reflections to timely comments on the politics and society of both Prague and the Czech Republic of the era under study." - Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe "Wilma Iggers offers English-reading audiences fascinating new perspectives ... in a sensitive introduction to the city's modern experience and translated sections from the writings of twelve women ... This volume is particularly welcome since the work of most of these writers has not been readily available in English before." - Gary B. Cohen, University of Oklahoma For many centuries Prague has exerted a particular fascination because of its beauty and therichness of its culture and history. Its famous group of German and Czech writers of mostly Jewish extraction in the earlier part of this century has deeply influenced Western culture.However, little attention has so far been paid to the roles of women in the history of thisethnically diverse area in around Prague. Based on largely autobiographical writings and letters by women and enhanced by extensive historical introduction, this book redresses a serious imbalance. The vivid and often moving portraits, which emerge from the varied material used bythe author, offer fascinating and new insights into the social and cultural history of this region.