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“Based on archive material available to the English reader for the first time, Baer’s analysis probes Dubček’s career in the Slovak Communist Party in the early 1960s and then his dissident activities after 1969. Contrary to common belief, Dubček was not silent after 1969 when he was stripped of all his Party functions. For 20 years until 1989 when the ‘Velvet Revolution’ liberated Czechoslovakia from Communist rule, Dubček was banished from public life; the Czechoslovak State Security Service had him and his family followed on a daily basis and at great cost. In the West, namely in Italy, Germany and France, the Social Democratic parties held him in the highest regard; at the same time, the ‘normalization’ regime led by Gustáv Husák could not silence him, since Dubček was a dissident in the truest sense of the word: a former believer who fell from grace because he insisted on his right to differ in matters of politics.”—Stanislav Sikora, Institute of History, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava
"This volume is based on extensive archival sources, various texts written by Dubček, including his autobiography, and an energetic engagement with the scholarly literature. […] Baer revisits an important chapter in the history of Czechoslovakia."—Sabrina P. Ramet, Professor Emerita, The Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Europe-Asia Studies
"Insgesamt kann man der im Vorwort formulierten Aussage des Historikers Jan Pešek zustimmen, der die flüssig geschriebene Biografie Dubceks als Lesemuss für jeden, der sich für die Geschichte Mitteleuropas im 20. Jahrhundert und jene des europäischen Kommunismus interessiert, bezeichnet. Den Neo-Stalinisten der sogenannten Normalisierung in der Tschechoslowakei zwischen 1970 und 1989 ist es jedenfalls nicht gelungen, Alexander Dubcek – wie beabsichtigt – aus dem kollektiven Gedächtnis zu löschen."—Thomas Krzenck, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 9/2020