When a Jewish family flees from the German invasion of their home country of Czechoslovakia in 1938, their flight leads them to France via Switzerland, eventually on to Tel Aviv, Israel. The family, under the headship of banker Frederic Bartok, is comprised of his wife, Cornelia, an opera star and gifted violinist; their twin daughters, Romingarde and Irmingarde; the children's governess, Bernie; and their trusted chauffeur, Francois Leclerq. The orphans Hannah and Max, whose parents have been murdered in Poland, join the family later. This is a story of survival that allows a growth of faith. All historical events described are factual in a setting of fiction.
In 2007 and 2008, Barack Obama ran for president with a message of a shared purpose uniting all Americans, and was elected with expectations that he would usher in a new national culture under an approach grounded in public engagement that would transcend partisan divisions. But in an institutional system designed for incremental and contested policy-making governance, enacting these transformational ambitions proved to be far more difficult than anticipated. This innovative volume assesses the legacy of President Obama, with a conceptual focus on the challenge of meeting his goals with the realities of governing. A diverse group of political science, history, and communication studies experts systematically examines Obama’s performance, accomplishments, and shortcomings through the lens of the expectations gap – the tensions and obstacles of translating campaign promises into policies. The wide, representative set of case studies address campaigning and coalition building, party polarization, presidential communication, executive power, leadership and decision-making, and domestic and foreign policy. With original and deep analysis, these scholars make a unique, enduring contribution to understanding the Obama presidency, the office of the president, and indeed American politics. This insightful, accessible book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the presidency, political communication & rhetoric, and broadly across US government and democracy.
Ilona Lakova's darked skinned illiterate Gypsy father fell in love with her pale skinned Polish mother whilst a prisoner in Russia during the First World War. They returned to his mothers house in a Gypsy settlement on the edge of the village of Saris in Slovakia where their family of nine grew up, despised and mocked by the peasants on whom they depended for work. Ilona describes in simple unaffected language what it was like to be part of a tight knit community bound together by language, customs, music and a love of family, the spirit of Romipen.
Antin emigrated from Polotzk (Polotsk), Belarus [Russia], to Boston, Massachusetts, at age 13. She tells of Jewish life in Russia and in the United States.
“A riveting tale of her family’s experience in Europe during World War II [and] a well-wrought political history of the region, told with great authority. . . . More than a memoir, this is a book of facts and action, a chronicle of a war in progress from a partisan faithful to the idea of Czechoslovakian democracy.” -- Los Angeles Times Drawn from her own memory, her parents’ written reflections, and interviews with contemporaries, the former US Secretary of State and New York Times bestselling author Madeleine Albright's tale that is by turns harrowing and inspiring Before she turned twelve, Madeleine Albright’s life was shaken by some of the most cataclysmic events of the 20th century: the Nazi invasion of her native Prague, the Battle of Britain, the attempted genocide of European Jewry, the allied victory in World War II, the rise of communism, and the onset of the Cold War. In Prague Winter, Albright reflects on her discovery of her family’s Jewish heritage many decades after the war, on her Czech homeland’s tangled history, and on the stark moral choices faced by her parents and their generation. Often relying on eyewitness descriptions, she tells the story of how millions of ordinary citizens were ripped from familiar surroundings and forced into new roles as exile leaders and freedom fighters, resistance organizers and collaborators, victims and killers. These events of enormous complexity are shaped by concepts familiar to any growing child: fear, trust, adaptation, the search for identity, the pressure to conform, the quest for independence, and the difference between right and wrong. Prague Winter is an exploration of the past with timeless dilemmas in mind, a journey with universal lessons that is simultaneously a deeply personal memoir and an incisive work of history. It serves as a guide to the future through the lessons of the past, as seen through the eyes of one of the international community’s most respected and fascinating figures in history. Albright and her family’s experiences provide an intensely human lens through which to view the most political and tumultuous years in modern history.
“A riveting tale of her family’s experience in Europe during World War II [and] a well-wrought political history of the region, told with great authority. . . . More than a memoir, this is a book of facts and action, a chronicle of a war in progress from a partisan faithful to the idea of Czechoslovakian democracy.” -- Los Angeles Times Drawn from her own memory, her parents’ written reflections, and interviews with contemporaries, the former US Secretary of State and New York Times bestselling author Madeleine Albright's tale that is by turns harrowing and inspiring Before she turned twelve, Madeleine Albright’s life was shaken by some of the most cataclysmic events of the 20th century: the Nazi invasion of her native Prague, the Battle of Britain, the attempted genocide of European Jewry, the allied victory in World War II, the rise of communism, and the onset of the Cold War. In Prague Winter, Albright reflects on her discovery of her family’s Jewish heritage many decades after the war, on her Czech homeland’s tangled history, and on the stark moral choices faced by her parents and their generation. Often relying on eyewitness descriptions, she tells the story of how millions of ordinary citizens were ripped from familiar surroundings and forced into new roles as exile leaders and freedom fighters, resistance organizers and collaborators, victims and killers. These events of enormous complexity are shaped by concepts familiar to any growing child: fear, trust, adaptation, the search for identity, the pressure to conform, the quest for independence, and the difference between right and wrong. Prague Winter is an exploration of the past with timeless dilemmas in mind, a journey with universal lessons that is simultaneously a deeply personal memoir and an incisive work of history. It serves as a guide to the future through the lessons of the past, as seen through the eyes of one of the international community’s most respected and fascinating figures in history. Albright and her family’s experiences provide an intensely human lens through which to view the most political and tumultuous years in modern history.
Myths are central to the way we live and how we define ourselves. In this pioneering book, a group of specialists--among them Anthony Smith, Norman Davies, Geoffrey Hosking and George Schopflin--look at the general and theoretical nature of myth on a universal basis and examine the specific myths of various nations. With nationhood and ethnicity at the centre of political attention, the book is timely in illuminating the deeper, underlying issues of nationalism that cause so much conflict throughout the world.
