Irreconcilable Differences?
Explaining Czechoslovakia's Dissolution
Contributions by Ján Carnogursk?, Václav Havel, Stanley Hoffmann, Owen V. Johnson, Petr Kopeck?, Daniel Kroupa, Carol Skalnik Leff, Miroslav Macek, Petr Pithart, Jan Rychlík, Jan Svejnar, Franti?ek Turnovec, Martin Vadas, Sharon L. Wolchik, Peter Zajac, Milan Zemko Edited by Michael Kraus, Allison Stanger

Not available to order
Publication date:
28 June 2000Length of book:
368 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9781461600343
This unique volume brings together a multi-disciplinary group of scholars as well as Czech and Slovak decisionmakers who were personally involved in the events leading up to the separation of Czechoslovakia. Asking whether the dissolution was inevitable, the contributors bring a range of different approaches and perspectives to bear on the twin problems of democratic transitions in multinational societies and ethnic separatism and its origins. The blend of analysis and insider experiences will make this book invaluable for all concerned with nationalism and ethnicity, democratization, and transitions in Eastern Europe.
Amidst an avalanche of books on the violent breakup of Yugoslavia, this is the first comprehensive study of the peaceful divorce of Czechoslovakia. It provides a rare combination of perspectives from both sides of the divide and puts them in a broader comparative framework. Neither a lament on how Czechoslovakia could have been 'saved' nor, making virtue out of necessity, the discovery of a 'model' for future candidates for 'separation with a human face' in Canada or Belgium, this work provides a clear, informed, and thoughtful assessment of the dissolution of a European state.