Prague: Belonging in the Modern City

Prague explores the concept of alienation and belonging through the lives of five marginalized individuals who forged their own notions of belonging in the city. It highlights the tensions between exclusionary nationalism and on-the-ground diversity and how these outsiders came to embody a city that was built for others.

Format: Hardback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 28 May 2021
Publisher: Harvard University Press

A poignant reflection on alienation and belonging,told through the lives of five remarkable people who struggled against nationalism and intolerance in one of Europes most stunning cities.

What does it mean to belong somewhere? For many of Pragues inhabitants, belonging has been linked to the nation, embodied in the capital city. Grandiose medieval buildings and monuments to national heroes boast of a glorious, shared history. Past governments, democratic and Communist, layered the city with architecture that melded politics and nationhood. Not all inhabitants, however, felt included in these efforts to nurture national belonging. Socialists, dissidents, Jews, Germans, and Vietnamese—all have been subject to hatred and political persecution in the city they called home.

Chad Bryant tells the stories of five marginalized individuals who, over the last two centuries, forged their own notions of belonging in one of Europes great cities.

An aspiring guidebook writer, a German-speaking newspaperman, a Bolshevik carpenter, an actress of mixed heritage who came of age during the Communist terror, and a Czech-speaking Vietnamese blogger: none of them is famous, but their lives are revealing. They speak to tensions between exclusionary nationalism and on-the-ground diversity. In their struggles against alienation and dislocation, they forged alternative communities in cafes, workplaces, and online. While strolling park paths, joining political marches, or writing about their lives, these outsiders came to embody a city that, on its surface, was built for others.

A powerful and creative meditation on place and nation, the individual and community, Prague envisions how cohesion and difference might coexist as it acknowledges a need common to all.

Weight: 560g
Dimension: 150 x 216 x 33 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780674048652