Thomas Masaryk Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Thomas Masaryk Book

An analytical study of the ideas and actions of one of Czechoslovakia's leading thinkers and politicians, who served as first president of the new Czech Republic. In this study, Gordon Skilling deals with Masaryk's pre-1914 career as a professor and permanent dissenter. Thomas G. Masaryk was a living combination of ideas and actions. As a philosopher he inspired practical work; as a politician he encouraged thinking. This duality, with its considerable impact on Czech and Central European developments, is aptly described and interpreted in Skilling's essays. For thirty years Masaryk was a constant and unrelenting critic of conventional wisdom, established institutions, and customary practices in Bohemia and Austria-Hungary. Masaryk often found himself alone and suffered the blows of a hostile public opinion and official wrath. He displayed a rare example of civic courage. Although he did not openly advocate full state independence for the Czechs and Slovaks, he severely criticized the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and prepared the minds of his fellow citizens for the struggle for national freedom in World War I and for a democratic life after 1918. Skilling's work is unusual in focusing on Masaryk's early career, and it seeks to interpret him in his contemporary proportions and not in terms of his subsequent life as a wartime leader in exile and as President of Czechoslovakia. Rather than providing a chronological account, it treats specific themes of his thought and activity. Skilling does not seek to exalt or disparage Masaryk, but rather to deal with him as objectively as possible. Unlike other works about Masaryk, it deals integrally with all aspects of his prewar life. It discusses his political theory and his practical work as a party leader, but goes beyond politics to his views on scholarship, Czech history, religion, anti-Semitism, nationality, Czech-Slovak relations, foreign policy, the social question, and the place of women.Read More

from£N/A | RRP: £42.93
* Excludes Voucher Code Discount Also available Used from £N/A
  • 0271010428
  • 9780271010427
  • Skilling
  • 1 September 1994
  • Pennsylvania State University Press
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 248
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. If you click through any of the links below and make a purchase we may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you). Click here to learn more.

Would you like your name to appear with the review?

We will post your book review within a day or so as long as it meets our guidelines and terms and conditions. All reviews submitted become the licensed property of www.find-book.co.uk as written in our terms and conditions. None of your personal details will be passed on to any other third party.

All form fields are required.