This collection of 35 essays written by the Czech playwright and human rights dissident who became the president of his country in 1989, focuses on the challenges facing an East learning democracy from scratch and a West unused to the multicultural complexities this process involves. Their organizing principle is that what is necessary now in politics and statecraft is the reaffirmation of values. "It will certainly not be easy," Havel writes, "to awaken in people a new sense of responsibility for the world, or to convince them to conduct themselves as if they were to live on this earth forever and be answerable for its condition one day. Who knows how many cataclysms humanity may have to experience before such a sense of responsibility is generally accepted? But this does not mean that those who wish to work for it cannot begin at once." The best vehicle for pulling this off, Havel says, are "those organisms that lie somewhere between nation-states and a world community." What he has in mind are "regional communities" like NATO, world organizations like the U.N., and another force that he thinks might be the best suited of all for this task--the mass media.

From Library Journal
Havel is the president of the Czech Republic as well as a dramatist and human rights activist, and this book presents approximately 35 of his speeches and writings given from 1990 to 1996. The selections are well chosen and illustrate how this postmodern politician has continuously tried to establish links among modern society, politics, and fundamental spiritual values both at the individual and collective levels. Havel believes strongly that spiritual and moral values must form the bedrock of all intergovernmental organizations, and he laments that politicians have become captives to the mass media to the point where Western electorates feel detached from their political systems. His spiritual journey combines his dramatist background and unique perspective on politics and politicians. An excellent book that will demand from readers invidious comparisons with their own political system and leaders, this is a terrific choice for all libraries.?Stephen W. Green, Auraria Lib., DenverCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The New York Times Book Review, Douglas A. Sylva
The mystical, vaguely pantheistic tone of these speeches will be unfamiliar to those accustomed to American political oratory, as will Havel's silence about particular government policies.... The greatest attribute of these speeches is the inspiring optimism of someone who has seen the worst of humanity without losing faith in it.

From Booklist
If speaking truth to power remains an ultimate test of political (and moral) courage, then Havel, the longtime dissident elected president of Czechoslovakia in 1989, now president of the Czech Republic, is as brave as he is famously eloquent. A playwright and essayist before he became a politician, Havel crafts his own speeches, which blend a deep philosophical commitment to democracy and civil society with a commonsensical insistence that both West and East are scarred by the tragedies of the past half-century, that both must change to produce a more peaceful and humane international environment. Although many of the speeches in this collection were delivered as Havel accepted international awards and honorary degrees, others challenge their audiences (and readers) on issues of controversy, from the Holocaust and the atomic bomb to the slaughter in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the changes needed if Western Europe's security arrangements are to be expanded to include former Communist states. Always, Havel insists, what human beings share must override the ideas and issues that divide them. Mary Carroll

From Kirkus Reviews
A collection by the playwright turned politician that will leave American readers wondering what it would be like to have a perceptive and honest intellectual as president. As elected leader of Czechoslovakia after the fall of communism and then of the Czech Republic after the division of Czechoslovakia, Havel speaks from personal experience about political stability and conflict, freedom and the degradation of human dignity under totalitarianism. He also speaks quite often; this volume contains 35 speeches and represents only a fraction of his total output for the years 199096. Reading speeches one after the other that were written at different times and for different audiences produces a sense of disjointedness and leaves one wishing for more extended discussions, but there are recurring themes. During the first two years of his presidency Havel's focus is usually the Czech experience during the 20th century. The stultifying pre-1989 political order provided plenty of time to dream, he suggests, and while those who spoke out were shunned, eventually their dreams shaped a new reality. The later, more outward-looking speeches primarily address the need for different cultures to coexist peacefully in an interdependent world. At the end of a century that continues to see terrible atrocities committed, Havel enjoins us to seek the transcendent elements of human life to build an inclusive spiritual foundation for world order. Here is a practicing politician whose head has room for something more than opinion polls: Today no less than in the past he places dreams at the center of politics and hopes for dreamers to author the future. Rather than resting on his plentiful laurels--many of these speeches follow the bestowal of some great honor--Havel argues that accepting personal responsibility requires accepting responsibility for improving the world as well as oneself. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Book Description
There is no shortage of politicians who make a habit of shooting from the hip, but it is much rarer to find one who speaks from the heart. Václav Havel knows no other way to speak, or to write. Both as a dissident and as a playwright it was his sworn purpose for many years to combat evil with nothing but truth. As president of Czechoslovakia, and now of the Czech Republic, he has clung to that habit, refusing to turn over either his conscience or his voice to political handlers and professional speechwriters. Instead he assumes the additional burden--for him, it is a distinct pleasure--of composing all of his oratory. Audiences from New York to New Delhi, Oslo to Tokyo, have been the luckier for his decision.

This volume consists of thirty-five of these essays, written between the years 1990 and 1996, that manage to be both profoundly personal and profoundly political. Havel writes of totalitarianism, its miseries and the nonetheless difficult emergence from it.

He describes how his country and the other postcommunist countries are learning democracy from scratch and are encountering obstacles from inside and out. He marvels at the single technology-driven civilization that envelops the globe, and the challenges this presents to multicultural realities. He invokes the duty of every person alive to prevent hatred and fear from derailing history ever again. He acknowledges "the advantage it is for doing a good job as president to know that I do not belong in the position and that I can at any moment, and justifiably, be removed from it." And he reminds us that--contrary to all appearances--common sense, moderation, responsibility, good taste, feeling, instinct, and conscience are not alien to politics, but are the very key to its long-term success.

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Czech

From the Inside Flap
There is no shortage of politicians who make a habit of shooting from the hip, but it is much rarer to find one who speaks from the heart. Václav Havel knows no other way to speak, or to write. Both as a dissident and as a playwright it was his sworn purpose for many years to combat evil with nothing but truth. As president of Czechoslovakia, and now of the Czech Republic, he has clung to that habit, refusing to turn over either his conscience or his voice to political handlers and professional speechwriters. Instead he assumes the additional burden--for him, it is a distinct pleasure--of composing all of his oratory. Audiences from New York to New Delhi, Oslo to Tokyo, have been the luckier for his decision.

This volume consists of thirty-five of these essays, written between the years 1990 and 1996, that manage to be both profoundly personal and profoundly political. Havel writes of totalitarianism, its miseries and the nonetheless difficult emergence from it.

He describes how his country and the other postcommunist countries are learning democracy from scratch and are encountering obstacles from inside and out. He marvels at the single technology-driven civilization that envelops the globe, and the challenges this presents to multicultural realities. He invokes the duty of every person alive to prevent hatred and fear from derailing history ever again. He acknowledges "the advantage it is for doing a good job as president to know that I do not belong in the position and that I can at any moment, and justifiably, be removed from it."  And he reminds us that--contrary to all appearances--common sense, moderation, responsibility, good taste, feeling, instinct, and conscience are not alien to politics, but are the very key to its long-term success.

About the Author
Born in Czechoslovakia in 1936, Václav Havel is a noted playwright, a founding spokesman of Charter 77, and the author of many influential essays on totalitarianism and dissent. In 1979 he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for his involvement in the Czech human-rights movement. In November 1989 he helped found the Civic Forum, his country's first legal opposition movement in forty years, and the following month he became president of Czechoslovakia. Since January 1993 he has been president of the Czech Republic.

Paul Wilson lived in Czechoslovakia from 1967 to 1977. Since his return to Canada in 1978 he has translated into English work by many Czech writers, including Josef Skvoreck´y, Bohumil Hrabal, and Ivan Klíma, and has translated and edited most of Václav Havel's prose writings to appear in English. He lives in Toronto.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

There is no shortage of politicians who make a habit of shooting from the hip, but it is much rarer to find one who speaks from the heart. Vaclav Havel knows no other way to speak, or to write. Both as a dissident and as a playwright it was his sworn purpose for many years to combat evil with nothing but truth. As president of Czechoslovakia, and now of the Czech Republic, he has clung to that habit, refusing to turn over either his conscience or his voice to political handlers and professional speech-writers. Instead he assumes the additional burden - for him, it is a distinct pleasure - of composing all of his oratory. This volume consists of thirty-five of these essays, written between the years 1990 and 1996, that manage to be both profoundly personal and profoundly political. Havel writes of totalitarianism, its miseries and the nonetheless difficult emergence from it. He describes how his country and the other post-communist countries are learning democracy from scratch and are encountering obstacles from inside and out. He marvels at the single technology-driven civilization that envelops the globe, and the challenges this presents to multicultural realities. And he reminds us that - contrary to all appearances - common sense, moderation, responsibility, good taste, feeling, instinct, and conscience are not alien to politics, but are the very key to its long-term success.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly - Cahners\\Publishers_Weekly

Playwright, revolutionary, former political prisoner and now president of the Czech Republic, Havel is probably one of the few world leaders who actually writes his own speeches. This collection of 35 of them -- delivered between 1990 and 1996 to audiences in Prague, Washington, Jerusalem, Tokyo, Athens, New Delhi, Paris and Los Angeles -- is an energizing statement of his activist political and moral (to him, they are the same) philosophy. In the earliest speech, Havel recalls for his countrymen the rosy words they had been hearing from their Communist leaders for the last 40 years. Then, he adds with his usual candor: 'I assume you did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you. Our country is not flourishing.' The unifying theme of the collection is change (change in Prague, the country as a whole, eastern Europe, Europe and the world), how it must be made to happen wisely, and how to adapt to it. Perhaps the most personal talk in the collection is the last, addressed to the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, in which Havel discusses both his life as a politician and his life as a writer. The principal translator, Paul Wilson, provides a useful preface to a book whose tenor can be best summed up by the concluding words of the author's Hiroshima talk: 'I will not lose hope.'

Library Journal

Havel is the president of the Czech Republic as well as a dramatist and human rights activist, and this book presents approximately 35 of his speeches and writings given from 1990 to 1996. The selections are well chosen and illustrate how this postmodern politician has continuously tried to establish links among modern society, politics, and fundamental spiritual values both at the individual and collective levels. Havel believes strongly that spiritual and moral values must form the bedrock of all intergovernmental organizations, and he laments that politicians have become captives to the mass media to the point where Western electorates feel detached from their political systems. His spiritual journey combines his dramatist background and unique perspective on politics and politicians. An excellent book that will demand from readers invidious comparisons with their own political system and leaders, this is a terrific choice for all libraries. -- Stephen W. Green, Auraria Library, Denver

Library Journal

Havel is the president of the Czech Republic as well as a dramatist and human rights activist, and this book presents approximately 35 of his speeches and writings given from 1990 to 1996. The selections are well chosen and illustrate how this postmodern politician has continuously tried to establish links among modern society, politics, and fundamental spiritual values both at the individual and collective levels. Havel believes strongly that spiritual and moral values must form the bedrock of all intergovernmental organizations, and he laments that politicians have become captives to the mass media to the point where Western electorates feel detached from their political systems. His spiritual journey combines his dramatist background and unique perspective on politics and politicians. An excellent book that will demand from readers invidious comparisons with their own political system and leaders, this is a terrific choice for all libraries. -- Stephen W. Green, Auraria Library, Denver

Kirkus Reviews

A collection by the playwright turned politician that will leave American readers wondering what it would be like to have a perceptive and honest intellectual as president. As elected leader of Czechoslovakia after the fall of communism and then of the Czech Republic after the division of Czechoslovakia, Havel speaks from personal experience about political stability and conflict, freedom and the degradation of human dignity under totalitarianism. He also speaks quite often; this volume contains 35 speeches and represents only a fraction of his total output for the years 1990-96. Reading speeches one after the other that were written at different times and for different audiences produces a sense of disjointedness and leaves one wishing for more extended discussions, but there are recurring themes. During the first two years of his presidency Havel's focus is usually the Czech experience during the 20th century. The stultifying pre-1989 political order provided plenty of time to dream, he suggests, and while those who spoke out were shunned, eventually their dreams shaped a new reality. The later, more outward-looking speeches primarily address the need for different cultures to coexist peacefully in an interdependent world. At the end of a century that continues to see terrible atrocities committed, Havel enjoins us to seek the transcendent elements of human life to build an inclusive spiritual foundation for world order. Here is a practicing politician whose head has room for something more than opinion polls: Today no less than in the past he places dreams at the center of politics and hopes for dreamers to author the future. Rather than resting on his plentifullaurels—many of these speeches follow the bestowal of some great honor—Havel argues that accepting personal responsibility requires accepting responsibility for improving the world as well as oneself.