Vaclav Havel

The Fight of Exiled Journalist and Anti-Communist Activist Josef Josten: For Freedom, Democracy, and Human Rights (1948–1985) explores the life and work of exiled Czech journalist Josef Josten (1913-1985) and his fight against the communist Soviet regime in his homeland. Josten was a tireless journalist, activist, and organizer of campaigns and initiatives to expose communist strategy and tactics. During his exile, he set up the Free Czechoslovakia Information Service, which issued the regular bulletin Features and News from Behind the Iron Curtain. His work culminated in the Free Czechoslovakia Campaign, and the establishment of the British Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted. This book offers insight into the Soviet directives regarding their relationship with Great Britain, the struggles of the Czech exile community, and the infiltration of the exile movement by Soviet secret agents.

When the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on December 10, 2010, its recipient, Liu Xiaobo, was in Jinzhou Prison, serving an eleven-year sentence for what Beijing called “incitement to subvert state power.” In Oslo, actress Liv Ullmann read a long statement the activist had prepared for his 2009 trial. It read in part: “I stand by the convictions I expressed in my ‘June Second Hunger Strike Declaration’ twenty years ago—I have no enemies and no hatred. None of the police who monitored, arrested, and interrogated me, none of the prosecutors who indicted me, and none of the judges who judged me are my enemies.”That statement is one of the pieces in this book, which includes writings spanning two decades, providing insight into all aspects of Chinese life. These works not only chronicle a leading dissident’s struggle against tyranny but enrich the record of universal longing for freedom and dignity. Liu speaks pragmatically, yet with deep-seated passion, about peasant land disputes, the Han Chinese in Tibet, child slavery, the CCP’s Olympic strategy, the Internet in China, the contemporary craze for Confucius, and the Tiananmen massacre. Also presented are poems written for his wife, Liu Xia, public documents, and a foreword by Václav Havel.This collection is an aid to reflection for Western readers who might take for granted the values Liu has dedicated his life to achieving for his homeland.

The Vaněk Plays are perhaps V clav Havel's best-known works, and the character Vaněk became a symbol for Czechoslovak dissidents during the Communist era. In the plays, Audience, Protest, and Unveiling, Vaněk encounters people trapped by the moral dilemmas inherent in a Communist system. Also included is Havel's modern sequel, the previously unpublished Dozens of Cousins. All translated by Jan Novak. Part of the Havel Collection, a series of new translations of the work of V clav Havel, from Theater 61 Press.

Samlet for første gang kan man i "Havel- i stykker" læse både taler, skuespil, breve og systemdigte fra den store tjekkiske personlighed, Vàclav Havel. Det er tekster aldrig oversat til dansk før, og man får en bred og inspirerende indblik i en humanist, der ikke blot stod på de store scener og snakkede til nationen, men som sad og fordybede sig i fiktionens finurlige, legende universer. Der er i bogen et stærkt forord af Lada Halounova, samt et perspektiverende efterskrift af Peter Bugge. Halounova og Bugge har desuden stået for at oversætte de forskellige genrer. Så dyk ned i en af Tjekkiets store forfattere, og bliv klogere på både hans leg og alvor og alt det, der skaber et stort menneske!Václav Havel (født 5. oktober 1936 i Prag, død 18. december 2011[1] i Hrádecek) var en tjekkisk forfatter, dramatiker og politiker. Havel var en af grundlæggerne af Charta 77, der udfordrede det kommunistiske styre i Tjekkoslovakiet. Han var præsident i Tjekkiet fra 1989 - 2003.

Euroopan toivo on suomalaisille lukijoille räätälöity valikoima Václav Havelin (1936-2011) aiemmin Suomessa julkaisemattomia puheita ja kirjoituksia. Tekstien punaisena lankana kulkee Euroopan tehtävän ja historian puntaroiminen: Havel pohtii, miten Euroopasta voitaisiin rakentaa oikeudenmukaisempi paikka elää.Havel oli idealisti, joka muutti Eurooppaa. Elämänsä aikana hän ehti toimia kirjailijana, toisinajattelijana ja presidenttinä, eikä hän tahtonut sitoutua mihinkään poliittisiin ideologioihin, tulivat ne sitten vasemmalta tai oikealta. Euroopan toivo esittelee Havelin vision kylmän sodan jälkeisestä Euroopasta. Euroopan nykyisessä poliittisessa tilanteessa hänen ajattelunsa on ajankohtaisempaa kuin koskaan.

Václav Havelâ??s remarkable and rousing essay on the tyranny of apathy, with a new introduction by Timothy Snyder Cowed by life under Communist Party rule, a greengrocer hangs a placard in their shop window: Workers of the world, unite! Is it a sign of the grocerâ??s unerring ideology?

This classic farce done in thirty scenes with no chronological sequence concerns a doctor of philosophy who has a wife, a mistress, and a secretary whose beautiful legs make it difficult for him to concentrate when she is taking dictation.

Books of great political insight and novelty always outlive their time of birth and this reissued work, initially published in 1985, is no exception. Written shortly after the formation of Charter 77, the essays in this collection are among the most original and compelling pieces of political writing to have emerged from central and Eastern Europe during the whole of the post-war period. Václav Havel’s essay provides the title for the book. It was read by all the contributors who in turn responded to the many questions which Havel raises about the potential power of the powerless. The essays explain the anti-democratic features and limits of Soviet-type totalitarian systems of power. They discuss such concepts as ideology, democracy, civil liberty, law and the state from a perspective which is radically different from that of people living in liberal western democracies. The authors also discuss the prospects for democratic change under totalitarian conditions. Steven Lukes’ introduction provides an invaluable political and historical context for these writings. The authors represent a very broad spectrum of democratic opinion, including liberal, conservative and socialist.

Candles in the Dark is an international compendium of essays that share a sense of the importance of introducing ethical and spiritual concepts and values into the public discourse on progress and globalization issues. They offer a new approach to international relations and public policy that esteems the human spirit and dignity as central values in decision making, seeks links between self interest and the common good, and introduces, in a practical way, philosophical, spiritual, and cultural perspectives in the political discourse on global political and socioeconomic problems.

Tomas Sedlacek has shaken the study of economics as few ever have. Named one of the "Young Guns" and one of the "five hot minds in economics" by the Yale Economic Review, he serves on the National Economic Council in Prague, where his provocative writing has achieved bestseller status. How has he done it? By arguing a simple, almost heretical proposition: economics is ultimately about good and evil. In The Economics of Good and Evil, Sedlacek radically rethinks his field, challenging our assumptions about the world. Economics is touted as a science, a value-free mathematical inquiry, he writes, but it's actually a cultural phenomenon, a product of our civilization. It began within philosophy--Adam Smith himself not only wrote The Wealth of Nations, but also The Theory of Moral Sentiments--and economics, as Sedlacek shows, is woven out of history, myth, religion, and ethics. "Even the most sophisticated mathematical model," Sedlacek writes, "is, de facto, a story, a parable, our effort to (rationally) grasp the world around us." Economics not only describes the world, but establishes normative standards, identifying ideal conditions. Science, he claims, is a system of beliefs to which we are committed. To grasp the beliefs underlying economics, he breaks out of the field's confines with a tour de force exploration of economic thinking, broadly defined, over the millennia. He ranges from the epic of Gilgamesh and the Old Testament to the emergence of Christianity, from Descartes and Adam Smith to the consumerism in Fight Club. Throughout, he asks searching meta-economic questions: What is the meaning and the point of economics? Can we do ethically all that we can do technically? Does it pay to be good? Placing the wisdom of philosophers and poets over strict mathematical models of human behavior, Sedlacek's groundbreaking work promises to change the way we calculate economic value.

Terezín survivor George (Jirí) Brady recalls: "In the tragic struggle for survival, the Nazi-imposed Terezín 'self-administration' tried to help the imprisoned children. They were placed in buildings where living conditions were better than in the many barracks that were inside the fortress. . . . I was one of these children. And by pure luck I found myself among the boys who were led by Valtr Eisinger. In a small room overcrowded with three-tiered bunks, he created a new, fascinating world for us behind the ghetto walls. The boys developed talents they never dreamed they had, and it was there too that the illegal children's magazine on which this book is based was founded."From 1942 to 1944, a group of thirteen- to fifteen-year-old Jewish boys secretly produced a weekly magazine called Vedem (In the Lead) at the model concentration camp, Theresienstadt ("Terezín" in Czech). The writers, artists, and editors put together the issues and copied them by hand behind the blackout shades of their cellblock, which they affectionately called the "Republic of Shkid." Although the material was saved by one of the handful of boys who survived the Holocaust, it was suppressed for fifty years in Czechoslovakia until 1995, when these works were published simultaneously in English, Czech, and German. Vedem provides a poignant glimpse into the world of boys torn from their comfortable childhoods and separated from their families, ultimately to perish in the Nazi death machine. This edition includes a new preface and epilogue.

The Memo is one of V clav Havel's most popular plays, and this new translation is by Havel's most prolific translator, Paul Wilson. An office has adopted a new official language, Ptydepe, in an attempt to make communication more scientific. But the new language may truly be a tool for power. Havel's play was able to slip by the Communist Czech censors in 1965, despite its veiled political commentary. Part of the Havel Collection, a series of new translations of the work of V clav Havel, from Theater 61 Press.

The Pig, or V clav Havel's Hunt for a Pig was Havel's final theater piece, a shaggy-dog tale set at a pig roast and filled with music. Vladim r Mor vek took an old dialogue of Havel's, combined it with Smetana's The Bartered Bride, and the resulting collage comments both on Communist Czechoslovakia and the post-Communist Czech era. Also included is Havel's first ever one-act: Ela, Hela, and the Hitch. These plays, translated by Edward Einhorn, have never before been published in English translation. Part of the Havel Collection, a series of new translations of the work of V clav Havel, from Theater 61 Press.

Leaving was the first play written by V clav Havel after his final term as President of The Czech Republic. Inspired by Lear and The Cherry Orchard, Havel writes of a man forced to leave the state owned villa he has called home for years, when his time in public office has ended. A drama of ethics and politics with, as always, a touch of the absurd. Translated by Havel's most prolific translator, Paul Wilson. Part of the Havel Collection, a series of new translations of the work of V clav Havel, from Theater 61 Press.

The Increased Difficulty of Concentration is a metaphysical farce, written by dissident Czechoslovak playwright (and future president) V clav Havel. Hummel, an academic, juggles lovers, philosophy, and the questions from a strange machine called Pazuk, while trying to make sense of his life. A previously unpublished translation by Stěp n Simek. Part of the Havel Collection, a series of new translations of the work of V clav Havel, from Theater 61 Press.

In The Responsibility to Protect: The Promise of Stopping Mass Atrocities in Our Time, Jared Genser and Irwin Cotler provide a comprehensive overview on how this contemporary principle of international law has developed and analyze how best to apply it to current and future humanitarian crises. The "responsibility to protect" is a doctrine unanimously adopted by the UN World Summit in 2005, which says that all states have an obligation to protect their own citizens from mass atrocities, which includes genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. Its adoption and application has generated a passionate debate in law schools, professional organizations, media and within the U.N. system. To present a full picture of where the doctrine now stands and where it could go in the future, editors Jared Genser and Irwin Cotler have assembled a global team of authors with diverse backgrounds and differing viewpoints, including Edward Luck, the UN Secretary-General's Special Advisor on the Responsibility to Protect. Genser and Cotler balance the pro-RtoP chapters with more skeptical arguments from agency staff and scholars with long experience in addressing mass atrocities. Framed by a Preface from Desmond Tutu and Vaclav Havel and a Conclusion from Gareth Evans, these in-depth and authoritative analyses move beyond theory to demonstrate how RtoP has worked on the ground and should work if applied to other crises. The global focus of this book, as well as its detailed application of the principle in case studies make it uniquely useful to staff at international organizations and NGOs considering use of the principle in a given circumstance, to scholars providing advice to governments, and to students seeking guidance on this still-expanding subject.

In this new collection of essays, Adam Michnik - one of Europe's leading dissidents - traces the post-cold-war transformation of Eastern Europe. He writes again in opposition, this time to post-communist elites and European Union bureaucrats. Composed of history, memoir, and political critique, "In Search of Lost Meaning" shines a spotlight on the changes in Poland and the Eastern Bloc in the post-1989 years. Michnik asks what mistakes were made and what we can learn from climactic events in Poland's past, in its literature, and the histories of Central and Eastern Europe. He calls attention to pivotal moments in which central figures like Lech Walesa and political movements like Solidarity came into being, how these movements attempted to uproot the past, and how subsequent events have ultimately challenged Poland's enduring ethical legacy of morality and liberalism. Reflecting on the most recent efforts to grapple with Poland's Jewish history and residual guilt, this profoundly important book throws light not only on recent events, but also on the thinking of one of their most important protagonists.