Chad Bryant – författare

In 1952, a Prague court tried Rudolf Slánský and thirteen other Communist leaders - eleven of them "of Jewish heritage" - of espionage and treason. Most of the defendants were executed days later. The trial, which was one of the most notorious Stalin-era show trials in Eastern Europe, has long been considered as an antisemitic Soviet export, directly orchestrated by Stalin. This collectively written book overturns that long-standing misinterpretation of the trial. Drawing on a vast array of archival sources, it uncovers the ways in which the trial emerged from political rivalries in Prague and beyond, fueled by personal ambitions and calculated attempts to capture Moscow's attention. The book traces the prewar and wartime formation of the Czechoslovak Communist elite, the mechanisms of postwar power consolidation, the role of ethnic cleansing, and the shifting use of antisemitism and "Zionism" in domestic politics. It demonstrates how factional maneuvering, coercive interrogations, and carefully curated information sent to Moscow shaped both the trial itself and the wave of related proceedings that continued even after Stalin's death. Beyond reconstructing the orchestration between Prague and Moscow, the book opens a window into the inner workings of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, revealing the rituals, hierarchies, and personal ties that bound its leaders to counterparts in the Soviet Union and across Eastern Europe. Situating the Slánský trial within the larger framework of Cold War geopolitics, the authors also examine its contested legacies, from the ways it has been remembered and forgotten to its enduring symbolic role in debates about authoritarianism and justice. By integrating political, social, and cultural history, this book offers a powerful new perspective on authoritarian rule, the porous boundaries between victim and perpetrator, and the local agency expressed through the choices that culminated in the Stalinist bloc's most infamous spectacle of justice.

In September 1938, the Munich Agreement delivered the Sudetenland to Germany. Six months later, Hitler’s troops marched unopposed into Prague and established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia—the first non-German territory to be occupied by Nazi Germany. Although Czechs outnumbered Germans thirty to one, Nazi leaders were determined to make the region entirely German.Chad Bryant explores the origins and implementation of these plans as part of a wider history of Nazi rule and its consequences for the region. To make the Protectorate German, half the Czech population (and all Jews) would be expelled or killed, with the other half assimilated into a German national community with the correct racial and cultural composition. With the arrival of Reinhard Heydrich, Germanization measures accelerated. People faced mounting pressure from all sides. The Nazis required their subjects to act (and speak) German, while Czech patriots, and exiled leaders, pressed their countrymen to act as “good Czechs.”By destroying democratic institutions, harnessing the economy, redefining citizenship, murdering the Jews, and creating a climate of terror, the Nazi occupation set the stage for the postwar expulsion of Czechoslovakia’s three million Germans and for the Communists’ rise to power in 1948. The region, Bryant shows, became entirely Czech, but not before Nazi rulers and their postwar successors had changed forever what it meant to be Czech, or German.

A poignant reflection on alienation and belonging, told through the lives of five remarkable people who struggled against nationalism and intolerance in one of Europe’s most stunning cities.What does it mean to belong somewhere? For many of Prague’s 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 Europe’s 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.

Few historians have written about walking, despite its obvious centrality to the human condition. Focusing on the period 1800-1914, this book examines the practices and meanings of walking in the context of transformative modernity. It boldly suggests that once historians place walking at the heart of their analyses, exciting new perspectives on themes central to the ‘long nineteenth century’ emerge. Walking Histories, 1800-1914 adopts a global perspective, including contributions from specialists in the history and culture of Great Britain, North America, Australia, Russia, East-Central Europe, and South Asia. Critically engaging with recent research, the contributions within offer fresh insights for academic experts, while remaining accessible to student readers. This book will be essential reading for those interested in movement, travel, leisure, urban history, and environmental history.