Books about central europe

A celebration of a river which has forever been at the centre of the great movements in history. In this fascinating journey through the history and culture of the Danube, the author invites the reader to accompany him along the whole course of the river, from the Bavarian hills to the Black Sea.

This work is intended for students of Eastern and Central European history. It explores the complexity of the relationships - those of enemies, neighbours and friends - that bind and divide European nations.

Updated and expanded second edition covering Polish history, from medieval times to the present day.

A journey of the imagination, in which Claudio Magris uncovers the whole of human striving in a microcosm. Delving into his Triestine homeland Magris discovers the city's domestic interiors, its cafes, bars, marketplaces and stations, to be the forums in which humanity transacts its business.

A sequel to A Time of Gifts .

A Jewish travel guidebook that takes visitors to the fascinating sites in towns, villages, and remote hamlets - as well as major cities - across Eastern Europe. The author, a Jewish-travel expert, offers personal insights and reflections on the people she meets while traveling, including country-specific historical and cultural information.

This edition of Norman Davies's classic study of the history of Poland has been revised and fully updated with two new chapters to bring the story to the end of the twentieth century.

The first English translation of Joseph Roth's portrayal of the vanished world of East European Jewry: their poverty, communities and trades, their feast days and the mysticism of their rabbis.

In seven independent, but closely related chapters, the author presents his personal conception of the European novel, which he describes as 'an art born of the laughter of God'.

Of the Great Powers that dominated Europe from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, Prussia is the only one to have vanished. This book presents the history of Prussia.

A collection of all Kafka's shorter fiction, from fragments, parables and sketches, to longer, complete tales. Together, they reveal the breadth of Kafka's literary vision and the depth of his thought. Some, like The Metamorphosis and The Judgement , are well-known; others are mere jottings.

A collection of seven essays that sketches out the author's personal view of the history and value of the novel. The real work of a novel is not bound up in the specifics of any one language: what makes a novel matter is its ability to reveal some previously unknown aspect of our existence. This work describes how the best novels do just that.

Explores how the German people have shaped their natural environment and how the landscapes they created took a powerful hold on the German imagination. This book also shows that while mastery over nature delivers undoubted benefits, it has often come at a tremendous cost to both the natural environment and human life.

'A gripping detective story, a stirring epic, a tale of ghosts and dark marvels, a thrilling display of scholarship, a meditation on the unfathomable mystery of good and evil, The Lost is as complex and rich with meaning and story as the past it seeks to illuminate. A beautiful book, beautifully written.' Michael Chabon

A play that spans the history of Czechoslavakia between the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution, from the double perspective of Prague, where a rock 'n' roll band came to symbolize resistance to the regime, and the British left, represented by a Communist philosopher at Cambridge.