|9780822948803|The Czechoslovak Party Intelligentsia and Post-Stalinist Modernity|Rehabilitate Marx! conceptualizes new forms of socialist modernity during the post-Stalinist era in the second half of the 1950s and 1960s. After the demise of Stalinism, Czechoslovak intellectuals within the Communist Party realized that the primary challenge they faced wasn’t merely the further development of socialism, which would lead to communism, but that they needed to reformulate the entire socialist project. These intellectuals gradually abandoned the Marxist orthodoxy of their time and began searching for new interpretations of classic Marxist works that would provide an adequate conceptual framework for addressing contemporary problems. Mervart and…

|9780822948407|The Woman Behind the Artist| While biographers of Andy Warhol have long recognized his mother as a significant influence on his life and art, Julia Warhola’s story has not yet been told. As an American immigrant who was born in a small Carpatho-Rusyn village in Austria-Hungary in 1891, Julia never had the opportunity to develop her own considerable artistic talents. Instead, she worked and sacrificed so her son could follow his dreams, helping to shape Andy’s art and persona. Julia famously followed him to New York City and lived with him there for almost twenty years, where she remained engaged…

|9780822957287| A critical study of the philosophy and political practice of the Czech dissident movement Charter 77. Aviezer Tucker examines how the political philosophy of Jan Patocka (1907-1977), founder of Charter 77, influenced the thinking and political leadership of Vaclav Havel as dissident and president. Presents the first serious treatment of Havel as philosopher and Patocka as a political thinker. Through the Charter 77 dissident movement in Czechoslovakia, opponents of communism based their civil struggle for human rights on philosophic foundations, and members of the Charter 77 later led the Velvet Revolution. After Patocka’s self-sacrifice in 1977, Vaclav Havel emerged…

|9780822958550|Privatization And Ideology In Russia And Eastern Europe| After the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, more than a dozen countries undertook aggressive privatization programs. Proponents of economic reform championed such large-scale efforts as the fastest, most reliable way to make the transition from a state-run to a capitalist economy. The idea was widely embraced, and in the span of a few years, policymakers across the region repeatedly chose an approach that distributed vast amounts of state property to the private sector essentially for free-despite the absence of any historical precedent for such a radical concept….

|9780822961970|Gender, Citizenship, and the Limits of Democracy in Czechoslovokia, 1918-1950| When Czechoslovakia became independent in 1918, Czechs embraced democracy, which they saw as particularly suited to their national interests. Politicians enthusiastically supported a constitution that proclaimed all citizens, women as well as men, legally equal. But they soon found themselves split over how to implement this pledge. Some believed democracy required extensive egalitarian legislation. Others contended that any commitment to equality had to bow before other social interests, such as preserving the traditional family. On the eve of World War II, Czech leaders jettisoned the young republic for an “authoritarian…