The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History

In "The Winter's Tale", Shakespeare gave the landlocked country of Bohemia a coastline - a famous and, to Czechs, typical example of foreigners' ignorance of the Czech homeland. Although the lands that were once the Kingdom of Bohemia lie at the heart of Europe, Czechs are usually encountered in the margins of other people's stories. In this book, Derek Sayer reverses this perspective. He presents a history of the Czech people that is also a history of modern Europe, told from its uneasy centre. Sayer shows that Bohemia has long been a theatre of European conflict. It has been a cradle of Protestantism and a bulwark of the Counter-Reformation; an Austrian imperial province and a proudly Slavonic national state; the most easterly democracy in Europe and a westerly outlier of the Soviet bloc. The complexities of its location have given rise to profound (and often profoundly comic) reflections on the modern condition. Franz Kafka, Jaroslav Hasek, Karel Capek and Milan Kundera are all products of its spirit of place. Sayer describes how Bohemia's ambiguities and contradictions are those of Europe itself, and he considers the ironies of viewing Europe, the West and modernity from the vantage point of a country that has been too often ignored. It draws on literary, musical, visual and documentary sources, ranging from banknotes to statues, museum displays to school textbooks, funeral orations to operatic stage-sets, murals in subway stations to censors' indexes of banned books. It brings us into contact with the ever changing details of daily life - the street names and facades of buildings, the heroes figured on postage stamps - that have created and recreated a sense of what it is to be Czech.

About the Author :
Derek Sayer is Professor of Sociology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. He is the author of several books, including (with Philip Corrigan) The Great Arch: English State Formation as Cultural Revolution.

Review :
"One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1998" "An ambitious, elegantly written, and sympathetic account of the art, the literature, and the politics of the Czech people. . . . Sayer saunters gracefully and with sure footing back and forth across centuries of Czech religion, mythology, and history, displaying enthusiasm and engagement but immune to the usual self-serving national illusions. . . . His book is a delight."---Tony Judt, New Republic "A rich and intricate story. . . . Excellent . . . the most stimulating introduction to [its] subject available in English, or . . . any other language."---R. J. W. Evans, New York Review of Books "A masterful essay on the ironies and tragedies of both the cultural history of the Czechs and Czech culture's history of its own past."---Steven Beller, Times Literary Supplement "Sayer's penetrating and balanced discussion of Czech political and cultural history should spare us from ever again thinking of the central European place as 'a far away country.'"---Stan Persky, Vancouver Sun "Sayer masterfully conveys literary and artistic symbols and superbly describes meaningful memories pertaining to Czech history and to Czechness. . . . This splendid work is the finest study in English of Czech cultural history. It is highly recommended to both scholars and general readers who are interested in Czechoslovak intellectual history."