The Czech Republic: A Nation of Velvet

by Rick Fawn

Overview

Czechoslovakia has captured the nation's imagination throughout the twentieth century. The Allied betrayal of the country to Nazi Germany in 1938 was to demonstrate the appalling consequences of naive appeasement of aggression. The wholesale reform of Soviet communism in the Prague Spring of 1968 won western support, and sympathy when it was crushed by Warsaw Pact tanks. The fierce communist regime thereafter was brought down almost magically in 1989. Czechoslovakia added to the international political vocabulary the term, 'Velvet Revolution', and the velvet metaphor has characterised much of the country's path-breaking postcommunist transformation and its peaceful break-up in 1993.
In separate chapters on history, politics, economics, foreign relations and the new Czech identity, this book not only applauds the successes of the Czech Republic since 1993, but also uncovers the frayed edges of the velvet nation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781135287290
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/02/2004
Series:	Postcommunist States and Nations
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	575 KB

About the Author

Rick Fawn

Table of Contents

1. The Legacies of History: From the Foundation to the Velvet Revolution and the Velvet Divorce 2. Framing Velvet: The Institutional Arena and Rules of the Game in Czech Politics 3. Patchwork Velvet: The Burst Bubble of the Czech Economic Transformation 4. Exporting Velvet: The Czech Republic's Foreign Policy 5. A Nation of Velvet? Towards a New Czech National Identity