Customer Reviews

The Life of Edvard Bene%s 1884-1948: Czechoslovakia in Peace and War

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Zeman's biography is the latest on Edvard Benes, making use of a private and official correspondence that was locked up until 1989. This is an academic work, though it somewhat surprisingly has notes but not a bibliography. It is dispassionate in tone. It is prepared to take a critical look at Benes himself, his occasional conceit and overconfidence. And it takes a hard look at certain events typically treated more patriotically in Czech histories, such as the change of government and mobilisation that preceded Munich. At the same time, because Benes was so intimately involved in the country's politics in its first decades, Zeman's book can serve as a history of Czechoslovakia for 1918-1948 (a work that has yet to be produced, in the English language). Benes's life was both heroic and tragic. He was one of Czechoslovakia's founders alongside Masaryk, in 1918, and he presided over both Munich (Masaryk was dead, by then), and the 1948 communist coup. It is hard to fault Benes for Munich, as there was not much he could do, but his responsibility for 1948 was much heavier. But Zeman's book is an opportunity to judge for yourself.