Heartland of Europe

The modern state of Czechoslovakia, like its predecessor, the medieval kingdom of Bohemia, has never had much luck in English and American political literature. Influenced by the mutually antagonistic cultural and political trends in the country itself, American and English authors were already producing partisan studies and books in the pre-1914 days when Bohemia (together with its eastern province, Moravia) was still a part of the Danubian Empire of the Hapsburgs. After 1918, with the highly problematic creation of Czechoslovakia (a combination of Bohemia and Moravia with the northern, Slovak and Ruthenian, regions of Hungary), the partisan character of the literature devoted to the subject became even more predominant. In vain did one look for a sober, scholarly appreciation of the traditions and trends involved in the story of this most important “heartland of Europe.”

Czechoslovakia, A Critical History, by Kurt Glaser. Caxton, $5.50

The modern state of Czechoslovakia, like its predecessor, the medieval kingdom of Bohemia, has never had much luck in English and American political literature. Influenced by the mutually antagonistic cultural and political trends in the country itself, American and English authors were already producing partisan studies and books in the pre-1914 days when Bohemia (together with its eastern province, Moravia) was still a part of the Danubian Empire of the Hapsburgs. After 1918, with the highly problematic creation of Czechoslovakia (a combination of Bohemia and Moravia with the northern, Slovak and Ruthenian, regions of Hungary), the partisan character of the literature devoted to the subject became even more predominant. In vain did one look for a sober, scholarly appreciation of the traditions and trends involved in the story of this most important “heartland of Europe.”

Czechoslovakia, A Critical History, by Kurt Glaser. Caxton, $5.50