"From medieval times to the current day, historical accounts of Slovakia and the Slovak people have often been either sketchy, romanticized versions of a pastoral society or nationalistic, exaggerated exaltations of the past. Now Slovakia: From Samo to Dzurinda at last offers a true history of the Slovak people without prejudice: their struggle for national identity, their aspirations for independence and economic development, and their ambition to become a democratic state. The product of painstaking research by the authors - one a naturalized American from Slovakia and the other a Slovak historian - this book is the definitive volume for readers in the English language who wish to acquire a more sophisticated understanding about past and present Slovakia." "From the seventh-century empire of Samo, the first Slav king, to the present-day struggle for democracy, the authors detail all the region's significant history. They examine the Slovaks' Slavic ancestors and the emergence of a modern Slovak nation, the postwar communist dictatorship and the "Prague Spring," the fall of socialism from the "Velvet Revolution" to the breakup of the Czechoslovak Federation, and the ongoing process of trying to establish democratic institutions in today's independent Slovakia." "All readers - regardless of their ethnic origin or political persuasion - will find that this factual and scholarly historical survey of the Slovaks and Slovakia offers an illuminating new perspective on a people whose history has often been clouded by the interests of those who wrote about them."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved