Download or read book Havel written by Michael Zantovsky and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “definitive biography” of the poet and political dissident who became the last president of Czechoslovakia—and first president of the Czech Republic (Walter Isaacson). This portrait of Vaclav Havel, iconoclast and intellectual, renowned playwright turned political dissident, president of a united then divided nation, and dedicated human rights activist, is written by his former press secretary, advisor, and longtime friend—and recounts the turbulent twentieth-century era through which he prevailed. Havel’s lifelong perspective as an outsider began with his privileged childhood in Prague and his family’s blacklisted status following the Communist coup of 1948. This feeling of being outcast fueled his career as an essayist and a dramatist writing absurdist plays as social commentary. His involvement during the Prague Spring and his leadership of Charter 77, his unflagging belief in the power of the powerless, and his galvanizing personality catapulted Havel into a pivotal role as the leader of the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Although Havel was a courageous visionary, he was also a man of great contradictions, wracked with doubt and self-criticism. But he always remained true to himself. This “smart and exciting” biography is “both inspiring and filled with lessons for our time” (Walter Isaacson). “Havel was one of the most important intellectual-troublemaking statesmen of his time—a nonconformist, determined to live in truth, who questioned the system, his countrymen and himself constantly. No one is better suited than Michael Zantovsky to describe, interpret, and analyze this moral giant . . . A brilliantly informed intellectual and political history.” —Madeleine Albright “Entertaining, intimate, and moving . . . Zantovsky’s voice—that of a natural storyteller with an eye for the memorable anecdote, a mischievous wit, an easy intelligence, and keen sense of balance and fairness—is so engaging.” —Paul Wilson, The New York Review of Books
Download or read book The Garden Party and Other Plays written by Václav Havel and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gathered together here for the first time are seven plays that span Havel's career from his early days at the Theater of the Balustrade through the Prague Spring, Charter 77, and the repeated imprisonments that made Havel's name into a rallying cry and propelled him to the leadership of his country. They include The Garden Party, The Increased Difficulty of Concentration, Mistake, the Vanek trilogy of Audience, Unveiling, and Protest, and the first fully corrected English version of The Memorandum--the play that won Havel the Obie for Best Foreign Play in 1968.
Download or read book V clav Havel written by James F. Pontuso and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than any other public figure, VOclav Havel has reflected on the opportunities and dilemmas facing humankind as a result of the collapse of Communism. In VOclav Havel: Civic Responsibility in the Postmodern Age, James F. Pontuso argues that Havel's life as a dissident and political leader, his political philosophy, and his plays must be understood as connected to one another. Pontuso skillfully explores these connections and explains Havel's prescriptions for political life.
Download or read book Havel written by David Gilbreath Barton and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of a man who tried to resurrect the spirit of democratic life. He was born into a time of chaos and absurdity, and he took it as his fate to carry a candle into the night. This is his story and the story of many others, the writers, artists, actors, and philosophers who took it upon themselves to remember a tradition that had failed so miserably it had almost been forgotten. Václav Havel (1936–2011), the famous Czech dissident, intellectual, and playwright, was there when a half million people came to Wenceslas Square to demand an end to Communism in 1989. Many came to hear him call for a free Czechoslovakia, for democratic elections, and a return to Europe. The demonstrators roared when he spoke. “Havel to the castle,” they chanted— meaning Havel for president. And a few weeks later, Havel became a most unusual president. He was sometimes misunderstood and not always popular, but by the time of his death in 2011, the world recognized Havel as one of the most prominent figures of the twentieth century. Born into one of the most prominent and wealthy families in Prague, Havel was the constant subject of attention and an artistic eccentric in a family of businessmen. A young Havel and his family were cast by the Communist takeover as class enemies. Havel traveled a dark road that, ironically, provided the experiences he needed to reconnect not only to his own “ground of being” but to the traditions of civic society. This biography is the story of Havel’s inward journey in his underground years and thus the story of how Havel, the outsider, became the ultimate insider as president of the nation. In this intimate and sweeping portrayal of Havel, David Barton reveals the eccentricities of the last president of Czechoslovakia, and the first president of the Czech Republic.
Download or read book Reading V clav Havel written by David S. Danaher and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Reading Václav Havel, David S. Danaher approaches Havel's remarkable body of work holistically, focusing on the language, images, and ideas which appear and reappear in the many genres in which Havel wrote.
Download or read book The Power of the Powerless Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe written by Vaclav Havel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Designed as an introduction to emergency management, this book includes pieces on: social, political, and fiscal aspects of risk management; land-use planning and building code enforcement regulations; insurance issues; emergency management systems; and managing natural and manmade disasters.
Download or read book To the Castle and Back written by Vaclav Havel and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2011-03-11 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An astonishingly candid memoir from the acclaimed, dissident playwright elected President after the dramatic Czechoslovakian Velvet Revolution — one of the most respected political figures of our time. As writer and statesman, Václav Havel played an essential part in the profound changes that occurred in Central Europe in the last decades of the twentieth century. In this most intimate memoir, he writes about his transition from outspoken dissident and political prisoner to a player on the international stage in 1989 as newly elected president of Czechoslovakia after the ousting of the Soviet Union, and, in l993, as president of the newly formed Czech Republic. Havel gives full rein to his impassioned stance against the devastation wrought by communism, but the scope of his concern in this engrossing memoir extends far beyond the circumstances he faced in his own country. The book is full of anecdotes of his interactions with world figures: offering a peace pipe to Mikhail Gorbachev, meditating with the Dali Lama, confessing to Pope John Paul II and partying with Bill and Hilary Clinton. Havel shares his thoughts on the future of the European Union and the role of national identity in today’s world. He explains why he has come to change his mind about the war in Iraq, and he discusses the political and personal reverberations he faces because of his initial support of the invasion. He writes with equal intelligence and candour about subjects as diverse as the arrogance of western power politics, the death of his first wife and his own battle with lung cancer. Woven through are internal memos he wrote during his presidency that take us behind the scenes of the Prague Castle – the government’s seat of power – showing the internal workings of the office and revealing Havel’s mission to act as his country’s conscience, and even, at times, its chief social convenor. Written with characteristic eloquence, wit and well-honed irony combined with an unfailing sense of wonder at the course his life has taken, To the Castle and Back is a revelation of one of the most important political figures of our time.
Download or read book Letters to Olga written by Václav Havel and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vaclav Havel is one of the most important European writers of our time. In 1979 he was sentenced to four and a half years of hard labour for his involvement in the Czech human rights movement, Charter 77. In prison he was allowed to write to his wife, Olga, once a week. He used the opportunity for profound reflections, on theatre, society and philosophy. These letters form a remarkable document, and a work of lasting value.'From Havel, we learn that the true heroes of our time are those who stay the course.' Bruce Chatwin
Download or read book V clav Havel Or Living in Truth written by Václav Havel and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Temptation written by Václav Havel and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his most challenging work to date, Czech playwright Vaclav Havel has given the Faust legend a provocative twist. His setting is 'the Institute, ' whose mission is to combat the 'irrational tendencies' in society through its scientific work. Personal and professional relationships at this 'lighthouse of truthful knowledge' are a tissue of lies and sycophancy in which all concerned willingly collude.
Download or read book The Political Thought of V clav Havel written by Daniel Brennan and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-10-05 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the influences on the thought of Václav Havel and how Havel develops a unique political philosophy from these. This is informed from the phenomenological tradition. The book situates this philosophy among current debates in liberalism and agonism.
Download or read book V clav Havel written by James W. Sire and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James Sire provides an introduction and critique of one of the twentieth century's most fascinating figures. He introduces Havel's creative, philosophical and political work and provides a critique of Havel's worldview, especially his conception of political morality and notion of Being.
Download or read book Disturbing the Peace written by Václav Havel and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the eve of his fiftieth birthday, Vaclav Havel looks back on his life in the theatre, the literary politics of his early years and the stagnation that followed the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Havel also discusses his part in his country's struggle to restore morality and civic responsibility to public life and the price he has paid for this.
Download or read book Open Letters written by Václav Havel and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virtually everything Vaclav Havel has ever written has acquired a new resonance, whether ironic, artistic, philosophical or political, since he became President of his country in 1989. This selection of his prose ranges in time from the early 1960s to his New Year message of 1990.
Download or read book Summer Meditations written by Václav Havel and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eighteen months after becoming Czechoslovakia's president, Vaclav Havel reflects candidly on his first experience as a democratic politician. He also discusses issues which have become increasingly urgent throughout the former communist bloc, such as national rivalries and economic transition.
Download or read book Largo Desolato written by Václav Havel and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professor Leopold Nettles, the hero of Largo Desolato, is the author of a book that contains a troublesome paragraph laying him open to arrest on charges of disturbing the intellectual peace. Pressed by the government to recant, Nettles is tortured by internal demons as well as external ones. Vaclav Havel has created a vivid and terrifying portrait of the writer in the totalitarian state that is as real and immediate as today s headlines."
Download or read book The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence from Patocka to Havel written by Aviezer Tucker and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2000 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 a strong philosophical and political force, and he continued to apply Patocka's philosophy in order to understand the human condition under late communism and the meaning of dissidence. However, the political/philosophical orientation of the Charter 77 movement failed to provide President Havel with an adequate basis for comprehending and responding to the extraordinary political and economic problems of the postcommunist period. In his discussion of Havel's presidency and the eventual corruption of the Velvet Revolution, Tucker demonstrates that the weaknesses in Charter 77 member's understanding of modernity, which did not matter while they were dissidents, seriously harmed their ability to function in a modern democratic system. Within this context, Tucker also examines Havel's recent attempt to topple the democratic but corrupt government in 1997-1998. The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence from Patocka to Havel will be of interest to students of philosophy and politics, scholars and students of Slavic studies, and historians, as well as anyone fascinated by the nature of dissidence.
