To the Castle and Back
Author: Vaclav Havel
From the former president of the Czech Republic comes this first-hand account of his years in office and the transition to democracy following the fall of Communism.
A renowned playwright, Václav Havel became one of Czechoslovakia's most prominent dissidents under Communist rule – and the president after the Velvet Revolution, making him a key player in European politics. Here we see first-hand the challenges of creating a new government, tempered with Havel's revealing insights into the difficulties posed by an era of increased globalization and conflict. He discusses not only the situation in his own country, but also such pressing issues as the future of the European Union, the war in Iraq, and the role of the United States in contemporary affairs. Written with an eye towards both the political and the personal and a witty, well-honed eloquence, To the Castle and Back is a rare glimpse into the minds of one of the most important political figures of modern times.
The New York Times - Paul Berman
Vaclav Havel's To the Castle and Back is an artful, sly and touching self-portrait, cleverly and neurotically disguised as an artless heap of dry scribbled notes and wastebasket throwaways. In a preface to the English edition, Havel nearly advises us not to read the book at all. "If you occasionally feel like putting the book aside because it seems to skirt some of the world-shaking events that I lived through…I urge you to skip ahead." But don't listen to him.
Foreign Affairs
In a clever pastiche perhaps substituting for the autobiography that may never be written, Havel interlaces daily reflections composed in 2005 during a two-month stay in Washington, several weeks at his summer place, Hradecek, and a stay at Hel, on the Baltic, with his responses in an extended interview with Karl Hvizdala, each part interrupted by the record of daily instructions to his staff over most of the ten years he was president of the Czech Republic (1993-2003). The staff instructions deal with the nitty-gritty of governing -- or sometimes only his battle with his personal computer or need to get his cigarette lighter fixed. The carefully paced interview is the book's heart. It covers in detail everything from Havel's view of himself to his relations with colleagues, friends, and foes, from the personal details of his life with his second wife to the string of late-life personal health crises. The reflections are more philosophical and increasingly streaked with the tribulations of a weakening body and mind, but they also contain fond, if sometimes hilarious, observations about Americans. The effect is of three movies running simultaneously and somehow overlapping to produce a whole.<
Library Journal
From playwright to dissident to president of Czechoslovakia to president of the Czech Republic to lung cancer patient to supporter of the Iraq war to opponent of that war: Havel has a lot of ground to cover here. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
Book about: Working with Human Service Organisations or Global Business Regulation
Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order
Author: Robert Kagan
From a leading scholar of our country’s foreign policy, the brilliant essay about America and the world that has caused a storm in international circles now expanded into book form.
European leaders, increasingly disturbed by U.S. policy and actions abroad, feel they are headed for what the New York Times (July 21, 2002) describes as a “moment of truth.” After years of mutual resentment and tension, there is a sudden recognition that the real interests of America and its allies are diverging sharply and that the trans-atlantic relationship itself has changed, possibly irreversibly. Europe sees the United States as high-handed, unilateralist, and unnecessarily belligerent; the United States sees Europe as spent, unserious, and weak. The anger and mistrust on both sides are hardening into incomprehension.
This past summer, in Policy Review, Robert Kagan reached incisively into this impasse to force both sides to see themselves through the eyes of the other. Tracing the widely differing histories of Europe and America since the end of World War II, he makes clear how for one the need to escape a bloody past has led to a new set of transnational beliefs about power and threat, while the other has perforce evolved into the guarantor of that “postmodern paradise” by dint of its might and global reach. This remarkable analysis is being discussed from Washington to Paris to Tokyo. It is esssential reading.
The New York Times
A veteran of four years in the State Department, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of several books and articles, Kagan demonstrates a confidence and authority that demand serious attention. To disagree with his theses is not to argue against the importance of his essay. On the contrary, generating an intelligent and focused debate is a major function of such works. The true measure of Kagan's small book is that it is hard to imagine any future serious discussion of trans-Atlantic relations or America's role in the world without reference to it. — Serge Schmemann
Foreign Affairs
A book version of the essay that sparked a great debate on both sides of the Atlantic in 2002. In this tour de force, Kagan argues that today's conflict between the United States and Europe is not simply a result of passing policy disputes or the Bush administration's foreign policy style. Rather, it reflects a more profound estrangement rooted in American power and European weakness. The old Atlantic partners live today on different planets. America's preeminent global position has thrust it into a Hobbesian world of lurking threats and made it more willing to use force, whereas Europe seeks peace through law and diplomacy. Kagan is best in describing Europe's postwar project of taming the dangers and instabilities of power politics in a democratic, Kantian zone of peace. Thanks partly to the U.S. security guarantee, Europeans have devised a political order in which power is subdued and the use of force banished. Yet Europe has also made itself weak, Kagan charges, as its nations remain unable to confront the anarchical dangers of the wider world. Kagan argues that America's realpolitik view is not only a feature of Republican administrations but a deeper expression of American power (after all, Bill Clinton was willing to bomb Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sudan). The result is a growing divergence in strategic views and eroding solidarity.
Kagan's characterization of a postmodern Europe, however, is too German-centered; he ignores the fact that the United Kingdom and France retain great-power identities and a willingness to use military force. His reading of the United States is also debatable. The United States has been the preeminent global power since World War II, yet it has oftenpursued its national interest through multilateral institutions and security partnerships. Pace Kagan, Europe and the United States might disagree on the nature of threats outside the West — as they have in the past — but their own relationship remains embedded in an Atlantic security community.
Library Journal
This slim work by Kagan (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) ought to be required reading within the Bush administration as it attempts to patch together a multinational coalition to unseat Saddam Hussein. In a beefed-up version of his seminal 2002 article in Policy Review, Kagan argues that the United States and Europe no longer inhabit the same universe where power politics is concerned. Power, then, lies at the heart of the transatlantic culture war. Americans have it-making them a target and priming them to use it to address foreign threats. Europeans don't have it, and, judging by their trifling defense budgets, don't want it. Operating from a "psychology of weakness," says Kagan, Europeans place their faith in diplomacy, international law, and international institutions-both to come to grips with the Saddams of the world and to rein in what they see as the excesses of the world's remaining superpower. It behooves American officials to try to bridge this gap in perspectives. This brilliant and controversial work belongs in all library collections.-James R. Holmes, Univ. of Georgia Ctr. for International Trade & Security, Athens Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Former diplomat and current conservative think-tanker Kagan (A Twilight Struggle: American Power and Nicaragua, 1996) rehashes an argument he originally offered in 2001 in 'Policy Review'. That argument goes like this: During the Cold War, the developed world fell into two camps, one dominated by the US, the other by the Soviet Union. The former had need "to preserve and demonstrate the existence of a cohesive 'West,' " and so political divisions between, say, Germany and the US tended to be muted, at least on an official level. Though it begs for a united front of defense, today's common enemy--Islamic fundamentalism--does not demand the same coherence, which allows Europe to turn away from superpower big-stick formulas, to move "beyond power into a self-contained world of laws and rules and transnational negotiation and cooperation." The US, conversely, is settling into its role as the world's sole superpower, able to accomplish at least some of its tasks in the "anarchic Hobbesian" world by virtue of its military might. Europe, of course, benefits from this situation, even while clucking its tongue and attempting to "control the behemoth by appealing to its conscience," which Kagan considers to be a pretty good strategy that usually works. The upshot? Interpretations may vary, but Kagan offers a genteel solution for both sides: Europe should let us do what we must to keep the peace, recognizing that "we have only just entered a long era of American hegemony." And America shouldn't try to bully Europe into accepting the unpalatable, and perhaps even listen to our putative allies from time to time. Though he's capable of concocting a memorable sound bite, Kagan develops his nuancedargument with an appreciation for why Europeans are not now lining up alongside us to give Saddam a good thrashing. Good reading for policy wonks who missed the original article, of a piece with recent arguments for the virtues of American imperialism.
No comments:
Post a Comment