My new book, Postcards from Absurdistan: Prague at the End of History, will be published by Princeton University Press on November 22. This is the third and final volume of my Prague Trilogy. The earlier volumes, both of which were also published by Princeton, were The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History (1998) and Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century: A Surrealist History (2013).

PUP have now posted a preview of Postcards from Absurdistan on the web containing the Contents, Chapter 1, and Index.

Advance praise:

“Like Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project on nineteenth-century Paris, Derek Sayer’s book on twentieth-century Prague brilliantly mixes an infinity of small worlds that reflect the greater world of an enigmatic and fascinating city.”—Jan Baetens, author of Rebuilding Story Worlds: “The Obscure Cities” by Schuiten and Peeters

“Postcards from Absurdistan is a compelling account of the official and the everyday dramas of twentieth-century Prague. Derek Sayer evokes the farce, satire, tragedy, and absurdity of the fragments that create history, masterfully balancing reality and the myths constructed by visual artists, writers, dramatists, and composers.”—Marta Filipová, author of Modernity, History, and Politics in Czech Art

“An extraordinary entrance ticket to modern Czech culture—erudite, independent, fascinating!”—Jindřich Toman, author of Czech Cubism and the Book

“Brilliant and addictively readable, Postcards from Absurdistan is at once an intimate history of Prague and a lively retelling of the story of the twentieth century.”—Paulina Bren, author of The Greengrocer and His TV: The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring.