A History of the Czech Lands

Second Edition

Jaroslav Pánek, Oldrich Tuma, Jaroslav Pánek, Oldrich Tuma

• Publisher: Karolinum Press, Charles University
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9788024622279
• eBook ISBN: 9788024640730
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Eastern European History
• Index: History

Though the Czech Republic is a young nation, the areas within and just outside its modern borders boast an ancient and intricate past. A History of the Czech Lands provides one of the most complete historical accounts of this region to date. This history begins in the Neolithic era and follows the development of the state as it transformed into the Kingdom of Bohemia during the ninth century, into Czechoslovakia after World War I, and finally into the Czech Republic. Such a tumultuous political past arises in part from a fascinating native people, and A History of the Czech Lands profiles the Czechs in great detail, delving into past and present traditions and explaining how generation after generation adapted to a perpetually changing government and economy. In addition, the authors examine the many minorities that now call these lands home—Jews, Slovaks, Poles, Germans, Ukrainians, and others—and how each group's migration to the region contributed to life in the Czech Republic today.
 
The second edition includes sixty new photographs and a new chapter detailing the transformation of this post-communist country into a member of the European Union. The only study in English of this scope and ambition, A History of the Czech Lands is essential for scholars of Slavic, Central, and East European studies and a must-read for those who trace their ancestry to these lands.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction to the second edition
• I. Territorial Development and the Transformation of Landscape
• II. Prehistory and Beginnings of Slavic Settlement (to the 8th Century)
• III. Great Moravia and the Beginnings of the State (9th and 10th Centuries)
• IV. The Czech State in the Era of Přemyslid Princes and Kings (from the Beginning of the 11th Century to 1306)
• V. The Expansion of the Czech State during the Era of the Luxemburgs (1306–1419)
• VI. The Hussite Revolution (1419–1471)
• VII. The Bohemian Crownlands under the Jagiellons (1471–1526)
• VIII. The Czech Estates in the Habsburg Monarchy (1526–1620)
• IX. Baroque Absolutism (1620–1740)
• X. Enlightened Absolutism and the Birth of a Modern State (1740–1792)
• XI. The Birth of the Modern Czech Nation (1792–1848)
• XII. Czechs during the Revolution and Neo-absolutism (1848–1860)
• XIII. The Definition of Czech National Society during the Period of Liberalism and Nationalism (1860–1914)
• XIV. The Czech Lands during the First World War (1914–1918)
• XV. First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938)
• XVI. Czechoslovakia in the years after the Munich Agreement and in the Second World War (1938–1945)
• XVII. Czechoslovakia between Two Totalitarian Systems (1945–1948)
• XVIII. The Establishment and First Crisis of the Communist Regime in Czechoslovakia (1948–1958)
• XIX. Communist Czechoslovakia on a Journey from a Consolidation of Totalitarianism towards a Liberalization of the Regime (1959–1967)
• XX. The Half-Life: the Communist Regime’s Greatest Crisis (1967–1971)
• XXI. The Second Consolidation of the Communist Regime and the Descent into Collapse (1972–1989)
• XXII. Czechoslovakia’s Return to Democracy (1989–1992)
• XXIII. Czech Republic 1993–2004
• List of Abbreviations
• List of Illustrations, Tables and Maps
• Czech Republic, State Representatives
• Frequently Used Geographical Names
• Territorial Development of the Czech Lands (Maps)