"One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1998" Derek Sayer is Professor of Sociology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. He is the author of several books, including (with Philip Corrigan) The Great Arch: English State Formation as Cultural Revolution. In The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare gave the landlocked country of Bohemia a coastline-a famous and, to Czechs, typical example of foreigners' ignorance of the Czech homeland. Although...

An erotic, comedic, and compulsively readable historical novel depicting the beguiling Giacomo Casanova as he looks back on a life of love and ribald adventure In Count Waldstein's far-flung Bohemian castle, an aging Casanova spends his days as a librarian cataloging the count's extensive collection of books. Or at least that's what he's supposed to be doing. Ever the storyteller, Casanova instead dedicates himself to his own writing, for which the...

From former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright comes a moving and thoughtful memoir of her formative years in Czechoslovakia during the tumult of Nazi occupation, World War II, fascism, and the onset of the Cold War.