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History

Postcards from Absurdistan: Prague at the End of History

A sweeping history of a twentieth-century Prague torn between fascism, communism, and democracy鈥攚ith lessons for a world again threatened by dictatorship

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ISBN:
Published:
Nov 1, 2022
Copyright:
2022
Illus:
79 b/w illus.
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Postcards from Absurdistan is a cultural history of Prague from 1938, when the Nazis destroyed Czechoslovakia鈥檚 artistically vibrant liberal democracy, to 1989, when the country鈥檚 socialist regime collapsed after more than four decades of communist party rule. Derek Sayer shows that Prague鈥檚 twentieth century, far from being a story of inexorable progress toward some 鈥渆nd of history,鈥� whether fascist, communist, or democratic, was a tragicomedy of recurring nightmares played out in a land Czech dissidents dubbed Absurdistan. Situated in the eye of the storms that shaped the modern world, Prague holds up an unsettling mirror to the absurdities and dangers of our own times.

In a brilliant narrative, Sayer weaves a vivid montage of the lives of individual Praguers鈥攑oets and politicians, architects and athletes, journalists and filmmakers, artists, musicians, and comedians鈥攃aught up in the crosscurrents of the turbulent half century following the Nazi invasion. This is the territory of the ideologist, the collaborator, the informer, the apparatchik, the dissident, the outsider, the torturer, and the refugee鈥攏ot to mention the innocent bystander who is always looking the other way and V谩clav Havel鈥檚 greengrocer whose knowing complicity allows the show to go on. Over and over, Prague exposes modernity鈥檚 dreamworlds of progress as confections of kitsch.

In a time when democracy is once again under global assault, Postcards from Absurdistan is an unforgettable portrait of a city that illuminates the predicaments of the modern world.

Prague鈥檚 infinite shades of gray

Awards and Recognition

  • Winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Scholarship
  • Finalist for the PROSE Award in European History, Association of American Publishers