The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History

by Derek Sayer

Book Overview

In The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare gave the landlocked country of Bohemia a coastline--a famous and, to Czechs, typical example of foreigners' ignorance of the Czech homeland. Although the lands that were once the Kingdom of Bohemia lie at the heart of Europe, Czechs are usually encountered only in the margins of other people's stories. In The Coasts of Bohemia, Derek Sayer reverses this perspective. He presents a comprehensive and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 069105052X
• ISBN13: 9780691050522
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 1.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The Coasts of Bohemia -- a truly beautiful voyage of discovery

Derek Sayer's book is exceptional well written and informative, indeed the text is positively lyrical at times. The aim is to provide an understanding of a "people of whom we know nothing" in Central Europe, and Sayer does a masterful task in shaping and clarifying Czech national identity and national culture. The book is not simply a historical text. While the history is there, and while there is copious scholarly detail and referencing of historical events, the main strength of the text is in illustrating a deep national awareness in literature and the arts. One can almost imagine walking with Sayer on his return visit to Prague, walking through the magical streets of this beautiful city and commenting on buildings, street names, and monuments. He has a delicate but assured ability for capturing detail, coincidence, and irony. The book reads very well and it is amazing to remember that the original text was written in Czech and translated into English by the author's wife. This is an excellent way of understanding more about Czech lands and the Czech spirit and identity. It is a very beautiful literary work that rejoices in the artistic and literary richness of the Czechs, particularly over the last century. I, for one, am very grateful that Derek Sayer made it back to his homeland to reflect on complex issues of history, national identity, and national culture and to write this masterful book: a must for those of us who love the Czech lands and their peoples.

A Bright but Isolated Star

In The Coasts of Bohemia, Derek Sayers tells us how social values are invented and reinterpreted by those with the will and the power to do so, a study of Bohemian history with broader applications. He writes to clarify and contextualize social movements in the Czech lands from before the Hussites to the modern period, but the reader learns late in the book that his passion owes something to the cooperative assistance of his wife, whose father was a professor lost to the world of learning when he was removed by the Nazis as they closed the universities in Czechoslovakia in the 40s.The book is a bright but isolated star in the realm of scholarship that explains the Czech lands and people to the citizens of the United States. Sayers has a firm grasp on the little things, "the quotidian," that make up cultural identity, but it is his writing style and his ability to weave small points into major themes that makes the book such a masterpiece.I note with mixed feelings that Sayers works and teaches in Canada. The English-speaking world's gain; America's loss.

Another Rave for "Coasts"!

I can only agree with the eloquent rave of the first reader review. COASTS OF BOHEMIA is a miracle. It sweeps through Czech history, presenting a marvelous depth of historical detail while always remaining thoroughly readable, even beautiful, and exciting. Most of all I was impressed with the way in which the author so persuasively demonstrated a remarkable thesis: that a history so unique, particular, and extraordinary could show us things about European history in general that we had not seen before. A MUST READ for those interested in the area. Another perspective, also arguing for the broad and general implications of a very particular history, is offered in the book PRAGUE TERRITORIES. Both books argue for the contingency of national identity, the former relating it to the selfconsciously invented (reinvented?) Czech cultural "Renaissance" of the 19th century, the latter to the incredible creativity of the small group of Prague German Jews around Franz Kafka. PRAGUE IN BLACK AND GOLD presents the long sweep of Prague history in terms of eternal bloody conflict--ultimately a narrower thesis than the other two but a good introduction to Prague history, Czech and German. MAGICAL PRAGUE is a romantic journey through a cliche, a fun read but it never analyzes the "mystical" image of Prague but only reproduces it. All three of the above books are antidotes to this. But for a history of the Czech nation that enlightens European history generally, no book lives up to Derek Sayer's.

Academic history-writing at its best.

This is a marvelous book. It is far and away the best single work available to English-speaking readers with an interest in Czech history and culture. It also more than merits the attention of anyone with an interest in Central Europe, the Western invention known as "Eastern Europe," European cultural history, or cultural history generally.Sayer is quite convincing in making his major arguments: that the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia are rightly viewed as having stood for centuries at the center of European history; that Czech national identity, created virtually from scratch in the 19th century, exemplifies a complexly and authentically modern process of self-invention; and that the echoes, ironies, and reversals of Czech history hold valuable lessons for Westerners whose notions of "Eastern European" exoticism and backwardness are rivaled, in their ingenuousness, only by our belief in history as progress. He shows in vivid detail how history and historically derived notions of collective identity are refracted in the service of politics and power--and not only by totalitarian regimes. (In one of the book's most disturbingly persuasive sections, Sayer shows how Communism--far from being the wholly alien import that many Czechs would now prefer to see it as--took root in soil that had been well, if unwittingly, prepared by 150 years of often liberal Czech nationalist ideology.) Throughout "The Coasts of Bohemia," he provides a lavishly and (one comes to understand) lovingly detailed journey through the collective psyche of a fascinating nation--though Sayers' love for the Czechs and for Czech culture, we also come to suspect, is fiercely complicated and deeply ambivalent.It should also be said that Sayers' book is just about a perfect model of what a scholarly book should be: massively detailed but carefully, even dramatically, shaped and organized; filled with concrete particulars but always letting the reader see their relation to the grand themes; stringen! tly reasoned but deeply felt; and extremely well written, illustrated, annotated, and indexed. In all, an extremely intelligent, learned, and sophisticated book that is also a great read.