From political novels to surrealist poetry and censored rock and roll, Czech underground culture of the later twentieth century displayed an astonishing, and unheralded, variety. This fascinating exploration of that underground movement—the historical, sociological, and psychological background that gave rise to it; the literature, music, and arts that comprised it; and its more recent incorporation into the mainstream—draws on the voices of scholars and critics who themselves played an integral role in generating it. Featuring the writings of Czech poet Ivan Martin Jirous, philosopher-poet Egon Bondy, and writer Jáchym Topol, as well as Canadian expat and translator Paul Wilson—many of which have never before been available in English—in addition to an expanded bibliography reflecting advances in scholarship, this second edition of Views from the Inside is both a work of literature and an eye-opening volume of criticism.

In this collection of writings produced between 2000 and 2018, the pioneering literary historian of the Czech underground, Martin Machovec, examines the multifarious nature of the underground phenomenon. After devoting considerable attention to the circle surrounding the band The Plastic People of the Universe and their manager, the poet Ivan M. Jirous, Machovec turns outward to examine the broader concept of the underground, comparing the Czech incarnation not only with the movements of its Central and Eastern European neighbors, but also with those in the world at large. In one essay, he reflects on the so-called Půlnoc Editions, which published illegal texts in the darkest days of the late forties and early fifties. In other essays, Machovec examines the relationship between illegal texts published at home (samizdat) and those smuggled out to be published abroad (tamizdat), as well as the range of literature that can be classified as samizdat, drawing attention to movements frequently overlooked by literary critics. In his final, previously unpublished essay, Machovec examines Jirous’s “Report on the Third Czech Musical Revival” not as a merely historical document, but as literature itself.

The origins of life, species, and man continue to interest scientists and stir debate among the general public more than one hundred and fifty years after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. The Evolution Myth approaches the subject with two intertwined objectives.  Jirí A. Mejsnar first sets out to convey the advances made in cosmology, molecular biology, genetics, and other sciences that have enabled us to change our views on our origins and our relationship with the universe. Scientific advances now allow us to calculate, for example, the age of the universe, the period in which biblical Eve lived, and, with good justification, to reconsider the possibility that the Neanderthals and primates might be our ancestors.
           
The author’s second objective is to use biology to explain why evolution cannot have taken place in the way that is most commonly assumed. Mejsnar builds his case around gene stability and on the sophisticated modern techniques for gene manipulation, the complexity of which make these modified genes inaccessible to nature. Development of life on Earth is a discontinuous, saltatory progression that results in stages following from preceding latent periods in which new forms suddenly appear and possess new types of genome. This, the author argues, is difficult to reconcile with the hypothesis of continuous biological evolution based on the natural selection of random variations.
           
Taking a new approach to a much-debated subject, Mejsnar distills complex information into a readable style. The result is a book that is sure to get readers talking.

The first installment in Karolinum’s new Václav Havel Series—which aims to continue the philosophical discourse of that thinker, playwright, dissident, and president—this book asks whether it will be possible to reestablish urban spaces that are in tune with our times. By recalling the distinctive elements that comprise the urban experience, Olivier Mongin lays the basis for reflection on the contemporary urban condition. We live in an epoch in which information exchange takes place according to flows rather than in locations, in which globalization has thrust us into a post-city, post-urban world.

In the past, we were accustomed to seeing the city as a circumscribed space, the setting for cultural, social, and political life that enabled the civic integration of individuals. Now we find ourselves confronted by both seemingly limitless, gigantic megalopolises and the emergence of global networks of entities cut off from a physical environment. The current reconfiguration is cause for concern: Are we witnessing the terminal decline of the urban values that have been a concomitant part of recent human history? Will fragmentation and chaotic urban sprawl inevitably prevail? Are we doomed to lament the lost legacies of the Greek polis, the Renaissance city, Enlightenment Paris, and the great industrial cities of the nineteenth century?

Czech action art—a medium similar to performance art that does not require an audience—emerged out of the political and social turmoil of the 1960s. This movement has received little critical attention, however, as the Iron Curtain prevented its dissemination to an international audience. Here theorist and art historian Pavlína Morganová gives this art scene its due, chronicling its inception and tracing its evolution through to the present.
           
Morganová explains the various forms of action art, from the “actions” and “happenings” of the 1960s; to the actions of land art that encompass stones, trees, water, or fire; to recent displays of body art; to the actions of the latest generation of artists, who are using the principles of action art in contemporary postconceptual and participative art. Along the way, she introduces the most prominent Czech artists of each specific niche, including Milan Knížák, Zorka Ságlová, Ivan Kafka, Petr Štembera, Karel Miler, Jirí Kovanda, and Katerina Šedá, and demonstrates not only the changes in the art forms themselves but also the shifting roles of artists and spectators after World War II.
           
With over one hundred illustrations, Czech Action Art introduces this heretofore overlooked but fascinating art form to a global readership.