"Highly readable and enormously informative, this is a book that will make your head spin." -- Maclean's
Winner of the 2011 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for political writing.
One of the country's most distinguished writers and publishers returns to her roots to explore the consequences of democracy in the former Hapsburg lands.
In 1989 the Berlin Wall was dismantled. Communism gave way to democracy. Since that time the former borderlands of the long defunct Hapsburg Empire and the more recently dispersed Soviet Empire have been trying to invent their own versions of democracy and market-driven economics. But these experiments have led to a widening gap between rich and poor. The worldwide economic crisis has severely tested Central Europe's determination to live peaceably, and there are many disquieting signs of old hatreds and racial tensions returning.
Author Anna Porter travels through the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia to speak with leading intellectuals, politicians, former dissidents and the champions of aggrieved memories. She interviews great figures of the revolution (V clav Havel, Adam Michnik, George Konr d) and its new custodians, among them Radek Sikorski and Ferenc Gyurcs ny, and also examines the younger generation with little or no experience of Communism and no interest in its aftermath. She visits Poland's Institute of National Remembrance, Prague's Jewish Museum and Hungary's House of Terror, each an attempt to reckon with dark episodes of history.
The Ghosts of Europe is an exploration of power, nationalism, racism and denial in nations with a tumultuous history and an uncertain future.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 943.0009/049
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 22
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- Geographic Area Code
- ec-----
- ISBN
- 9781553656371 9781553655152
- LCCN
- DAW1051
- LCCN Item number
- P67 2010eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaOONL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (310 p.)
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)slc00228287 (OCoLC)659173833 (CaOOCEL)443038
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL