Demetz, Peter, After The Fires: Recent Writing In The Germanies, Austria And Swi

After the Fires: Recent Writing in the Germanies, Austria, and Switzerland

Literature & Fiction

Demetz, Peter

History & Criticism

Harcourt

A first-ever paperback edition. A rich and highly readable analysis of the literary scene in the German-speaking countries by an outstanding American scholar. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book.

After The Fires: Recent Writing in the Germanies, Austria, and Switzerland

An entrancing avant-garde adventure at the dawn of the modern age In 1909, municipal authorities built an airfield in northern Italy and invited leading pilots to compete on it. The show attracted thousands of spectators--among them Giacomo Puccini and Gabriele d'Annunzio--and reporters, including, amazingly, Franz Kafka, Max Brod, and Luigi Barzini. Peter Demetz's sparkling new book tells the enchanting story of what happened in the air and on the ground before, during, and after this amazing moment. Kafka, it turns out, was a very precise observer of both the fragile new machines and the people who flocked to see them in action. Demetz shows us the spectacle as Kafka reported it, and also its unexpectedly melodramatic preparations, amazing dirigibles, and ace pilots--the American Glenn Curtiss, the Italian Mario Calderara, and the reigning king of the skies, Louis Blériot. But above all Demetz wants to know what flying really meant to these visionaries of the air: many political and imaginative issues were sent aloft at Brescia. With discerning affection, he elucidates Kafka's subtle ambiguities about the consequences of flight, d'Annunzio's lust for power in aviation, Puccini's enthusiasm for speedy escapes, and Curtiss's modest heroism. Illustrated with fascinating material from the show itself, this provocative work reveals a vital point where art and technology met in imagining the future.

The Air Show at Brescia, 1909

History

Europe

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

Prague in Danger: The Years of German Occupation, 1939-45: Memories and History, Terror and Resistance, Theater and Jazz, Film and Poetry, Politics and War

A dramatic account of life in Czechoslovakia's great capital during the Nazi Protectorate With this successor book to Prague in Black and Gold, his account of more than a thousand years of Central European history, the great scholar Peter Demetz focuses on just six short years--a tormented, tragic, and unforgettable time. He was living in Prague then--a "first-degree half-Jew," according to the Nazis' terrible categories--and here he joins his objective chronicle of the city under German occupation with his personal memories of that period: from the bitter morning of March 15, 1939, when Hitler arrived from Berlin to set his seal on the Nazi takeover of the Czechoslovak government, until the liberation of Bohemia in April 1945, after long seasons of unimaginable suffering and pain. Demetz expertly interweaves a superb account of the German authorities' diplomatic, financial, and military machinations with a brilliant description of Prague's evolving resistance and underground opposition. Along with his private experiences, he offers the heretofore untold history of an effervescent, unstoppable Prague whose urbane heart went on beating despite the deportations, murders, cruelties, and violence: a Prague that kept its German- and Czech-language theaters open, its fabled film studios functioning, its young people in school and at work, and its newspapers on press. This complex, continually surprising book is filled with rare human detail and warmth, the gripping story of a great city meeting the dual challenge of occupation and of war.

A dramatic account of life in Czechoslovakia's great capital during the Nazi Protectorate 
With this successor book to Prague in Black and Gold, his account of more than a thousand years of history in the great Central European capital, Peter Demetz focuses on the six years that Prague was under German occupation in World War II: from the bitter morning of March 15, 1939, when Hitler arrived from Berlin to set his seal on the Nazi takeover of the Czechoslovak government, until the liberation of Bohemia in April 1945. Demetz was a boy living in Prague then, and here he joins his objective chronicle of the city under Nazi control with his personal memories of that period, expertly interweaving a superb account of the German authorities' diplomatic, financial, and military machinations with a brilliant description of Prague's evolving resistance and underground opposition. The result is a complex, continually surprising book filled with rare human detail and warmth, the gripping story of a great city meeting the dual challenge of occupation and of war.

Brand new(never opened)!!-ships immediately

Traditions of Experiment from the Enlightenment to the Present: Essays in Honor of Peter Demetz

Kaiser, Nancy

Univ of Michigan Pr

Will be dispatched from UK. Used books may not include companion materials, may have some shelf wear, may contain highlighting/notes, may not include CDs or access codes. 100% money back guarantee.

Prague In Black @ Gold the History of A

Russia

Hill and Wang

In 1909, municipal authorities built an airfield in northern Italy & invited the world's leading aviators to compete on it. The show attracted thousands of spectators -- among them Giacomo Puccini & Gabriele d'Annunzio -- & reporters, including Franz Kafka, Max Brod, & Luigi Barzini. This is an account of what happened in the air & on the ground before, during, & after this amazing moment at the dawn of the modern age. Demetz elucidates Kafka's subtle ambiguities about the consequences of flight, d'Annunzio's lust for power in aviation, Puccini's enthusiasm for speedy escapes, & Curtiss's modest heroism. This provocative work reveals a vital point where art & technology met in imagining the future. Illustrations.

Air Show at Brescia, 1909

Engineering & Transportation

Transportation

Diane Pub Co.

Postwar German Lit

Schocken

Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City

Prague is at the core of everything both wonderful and terrible in Western history, but few people truly understand this city's unique culture. In Prague in Black and Gold, Peter Demetz strips away sentimentalities and distortions and shows how Czechs, Germans, Italians, and Jews have lived and worked together for over a thousand years. .

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Demetz, Peter. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Demetz, Peter

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Demetz, Peter. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

After the Fires: Recent Writing in the Germanies, Austria, and Switzerland

After The Fires: Recent Writing in the Germanies, Austria, and Switzerland

The Air Show at Brescia, 1909

Prague in Danger: The Years of German Occupation, 1939-45: Memories and History, Terror and Resistance, Theater and Jazz, Film and Poetry, Politics and War

Prague in Danger: The Years of German Occupation, 1939-45: Memories and History, Terror and Resistance, Theater and Jazz, Film and Poetry, Politics and War

Traditions of Experiment from the Enlightenment to the Present: Essays in Honor of Peter Demetz

Prague In Black @ Gold the History of A

Air Show at Brescia, 1909

Postwar German Lit

Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City