Download or read book The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence from Pato ka to Havel written by Aviezer Tucker and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is 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 (1907-77), founder of Charter 77, influenced the thinking and political leadership of Vaclav Havel as dissident and president.
Download or read book Worlds of Dissent written by Jonathan Bolton and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-25 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Worlds of Dissent analyzes the myths of Central European resistance popularized by Western journalists and historians, and replaces them with a picture of the struggle against state repression as the dissidents themselves understood, debated, and lived it. In the late 1970s, when Czech intellectuals, writers, and artists drafted Charter 77 and called on their government to respect human rights, they hesitated to name themselves “dissidents.” Their personal and political experiences—diverse, uncertain, nameless—have been obscured by victory narratives that portray them as larger-than-life heroes who defeated Communism in Czechoslovakia. Jonathan Bolton draws on diaries, letters, personal essays, and other first-person texts to analyze Czech dissent less as a political philosophy than as an everyday experience. Bolton considers not only Václav Havel but also a range of men and women writers who have received less attention in the West—including Ludvík Vaculík, whose 1980 diary The Czech Dream Book is a compelling portrait of dissident life. Bolton recovers the stories that dissidents told about themselves, and brings their dilemmas and decisions to life for contemporary readers. Dissidents often debated, and even doubted, their own influence as they confronted incommensurable choices and the messiness of real life. Portraying dissent as a human, imperfect phenomenon, Bolton frees the dissidents from the suffocating confines of moral absolutes. Worlds of Dissent offers a rare opportunity to understand the texture of dissent in a closed society.
Download or read book The Dilemmas of Dissidence in East Central Europe written by Barbara J. Falk and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2003-01-10 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses one of the major currents leading to the fall of communism. Falk examines the intellectual dissident movements in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary from the late 1960s through to 1989. In spite of its historic significance, no other comprehensive survey has appeared on the subject. In addition to the huge list of written sources from samizdat works to recent essays, Falks sources include interviews with many personalities of those events as well as videos and films (including Oscar winners).
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 Political Action in V clav Havel s Thought written by Delia Popescu and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political Action in Vaclav Havel's Thought: The Responsibility of Resistance, by Delia Popescu, examines resistance to oppression and individual responsibility in political action, all in the context of Vaclav Havel's political philosophy. The famous anti-communist dissident, acclaimed playwright, former President of the Czech Republic, and eminent political thinker argues that there is a certain tendency in modern humanity towards the creation, or at least toleration, of a political system that is invasive and controlling. Not unlike Tocqueville and Arendt, Havel claims that modern liberal democracy contains potential tendencies toward a new form of despotism that capitalizes on modern alienation and social atomization. Political Action in Vaclav Havel's Thought suggests that Havel's theory of individual opposition can be used to secure political freedom under the conditions of modernity. Popescu demonstrates that Havel's idea of attaining true political participation and freedom requires a strong connection between an individually constructed ethics and the realm of politics. On this basis she reveals that a thick notion of morality can be usefully integrated into an account of both private and public accountability. Vaclav Havel's essays, plays, speeches, and letters can therefore be integrated into a coherent political theory which contributes significantly to some of the central debates in modern political thought. Delia Popescu concludes that Havel's theory of individual opposition to totalitarianism may also serve as the foundation for a conception of responsible participation in modern liberal democracies.
Download or read book V clav Havel s Meanings written by David S. Danaher and published by Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press. This book was released on 2024-01-01 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No one in Czech politics or culture could match the international stature of Václav Havel at the time of his death in 2011. In the years since his passing, his legacy has only grown, as developments in the Czech Republic and elsewhere around the world continue to show the importance of his work and writing against a range of political and social ills, from autocratic brutality to messianic populism. This book looks squarely at the heart of Havel’s legacy: the rich corpus of texts he left behind. It analyzes the meanings of key concepts in Havel’s core vocabulary: truth, power, civil society, home, appeal, indifference, hotspot, theatre, prison, and responsibility. Where do these concepts appear in Havel’s oeuvre? What part do they play in his larger intellectual project? How might we understand Havel’s focus on these concepts as a centerpiece of his contribution to contemporary thought? How does Havel’s particular perspective on the meaning of these concepts speak to us in the here and now? The ten contributors use a variety of methodological tools to examine the meaning of these concepts, drawing on a diversity of disciplines: political science and political philosophy, historical and cultural analysis, discourse/textual analysis, and linguistic-corpus analysis.
Download or read book Resistance and Revolution written by Rob McRae and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 1997-06-15 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under constant pressure from the regime, and frequently jailed or imprisoned for their efforts, the signatories of Charter 77 went on to lead the resistance and spearhead a revolution: the Velvet Revolution of 1989. For a time it seemed as if a philosopher-king had overturned the forces of totalitarianism, with the future of Czechoslovakia there for the making.
Download or read book The Political Thought of Vaclav Havel written by Daniel Brennan and published by Brill/Rodopi. This book was released on 2016-10-20 with total page 8 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the influences on the thought of Vaclav 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 Negotiated Revolutions written by George Lawson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Straightforward histories of post-revolution States have all too often failed to provide sufficient context to rescue revolution, both as concept and practice, from the misplaced triumphalism of the contemporary world. In Negotiated Revolutions George Lawson marks a definitive departure in the study of radical political and socio-economic change, presenting a unique comparative analysis of three transformations from authoritarian rule to market democracy. Through the lens of international sociology the book critically considers the large scale processes of social and political revolution, bringing three apparently distinct transformations, from seemingly disparate authoritarian regimes and geographies, under a common rubric. With unique and novel conceptual analysis the book accurately locates both the potential and actuality of radical change in contemporary world affairs, processes usually mistakenly subsumed under the general framework of 'transitology'.
Download or read book The Art of the Impossible written by Václav Havel and published by Alfred A. Knopf. This book was released on 1997 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is no shortage of politicians who make a habit of shooting from the hip, but it is much rarer to find one who speaks from the heart. Vaclav Havel knows no other way to speak, or to write. Both as a dissident and as a playwright it was his sworn purpose for many years to combat evil with nothing but truth. As president of Czechoslovakia, and now of the Czech Republic, he has clung to that habit, refusing to turn over either his conscience or his voice to political handlers and professional speechwriters. Instead he assumes the additional burden--for him, it is a distinct pleasure--of composing all of his oratory. Audiences from New York to New Delhi, Oslo to Tokyo, have been the luckier for his decision. This volume consists of thirty-five of these essays, written between the years 1990 and 1996, that manage to be both profoundly personal and profoundly political. Havel writes of totalitarianism, its miseries and the nonetheless difficult emergence from it. He describes how his country and the other postcommunist countries are learning democracy from scratch and are encountering obstacles from inside and out. He marvels at the single technology-driven civilization that envelops the globe, and the challenges this presents to multicultural realities. He invokes the duty of every person alive to prevent hatred and fear from derailing history ever again. He acknowledges "the advantage it is for doing a good job as president to know that I do not belong in the position and that I can at any moment, and justifiably, be removed from it." And he reminds us that--contrary to all appearances--common sense, moderation, responsibility, good taste, feeling, instinct, and conscience arenot alien to politics, but are the very key to its long-term success.
Download or read book Summer Meditations written by Václav Havel and published by . This book was released on 1992-01 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 Summer Meditations written by Vaclav Havel and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1993-06 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a work written while he was president of Czechoslovakia, Havel offers profound reflections upon the nature and practice of politics throughout the world, and extends a stirring call for a moral political system, a responsible free market, and a statecraft that honors human needs.
Download or read book Critical Essays on V clav Havel written by Marketa Goetz-Stankiewicz and published by Twayne Publishers. This book was released on 1999 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of critical essays on a Czech playwright and president, showing him from various perspectives. Contributions range from political analyses and historical assessments to linguistic interpretations, tributes, and personal memories. Themes include connections between his writing and his political career, his political thought, analysis of specific plays, Havel in the minds of his countrymen, and Havel on the role of the president. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book Disturbing the Peace written by Václav Havel and published by New York : Knopf. This book was released on 1990 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The president of Czechoslovakia tells of events in his life through a series of interviews.
Download or read book Open Letters written by Vaclav Havel and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1992-06-02 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanning twenty-five years, this historic collection of writings shows Vaclav Havel's evolution from a modestly known playwright who had the courage to advise and criticize Czechoslovakia's leaders to a newly elected president whose first address to his fellow citizens begins, "I assume you did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you." Some of the pieces in Open Letters, such as "Dear Dr. Husak" and the essay "The Power of the Powerless," are by now almost legendary for their influence on a generation of Eastern European dissidents; others, such as some of Havel's prison correspondence and his private letter to Alexander Dubcek, appear in English for the first time. All of them bear the unmistakable imprint of Havel's intellectual rigor, moral conviction, and unassuming eloquence, while standing as important additions to the world's literature of conscience.
Download or read book Revolution in the Making of the Modern World written by John Foran and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-11-05 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume questions whether ideas of revolution are still relevant in the postmodern and globalized world of the twenty-first century. Featuring contributions from some of the world's leading sociological and political thinkers on revolution, it combines theoretical concerns with a variety of detailed case studies of individual revolutions. Subjects covered include: democracy and revolution from 1789 to 1989 twentieth century revolutions and theories of revolution, including Marxism, modernization and structuralist theories revolution in the "Third World" and the variable geometry of the paths to modernity Islamic revolutions and modernity the 1989 revolutions as "democratic revolutions" or "elite-led transitions" globalization, the nation-state and revolution empire and "democratic revolution" network society and revolution Islamic fundamentalism, international terrorism and revolution democratic revolution as a new form of revolution postmodern theories of revolution new social movements, identities and new figures of revolution. Revolution in the Making of the Modern World will be essential reading for students and scholars of comparative politics, political theory, revolution and political sociology.
