Book overview
"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.
Through the eyes of one of the world's most respected diplomats, Prague Winter LP is a remarkable work of history that uncovers:
- Family Secrets: Decades after the war, Albright was stunned to learn of her family's hidden Jewish heritage and that more than twenty of her relatives had perished in the Holocaust.
- The Nazi Invasion of Prague: A harrowing look at life under occupation, the stark moral choices her parents were forced to make, and their family's eventual escape from their homeland.
- World War II in Europe: Experience the Battle of Britain through the eyes of a child refugee in London and witness the complex political maneuvering that shaped the fate of Central Europe.
- The Dawn of the Cold War: A firsthand account of the rise of communism in Czechoslovakia and the Iron Curtain's descent, laying the groundwork for Albright's future as a diplomat and Secretary of State.