Testimonial: I picked this book up to research a character for my novel The League of Berries & Laurels. I found the reading of Vienna to be an interesting method of comprehending history by way of influential cities. I may make a habit of reading a litany of well-done books on cities.

The Battle of White Mountain, 1620, precipitates the 30s year war and almost destroys Czech culture.

Minotaure Surrealist magazine

I never clocked Surrealism, an artistic movement I find mostly obnoxious, with express Communistic goals. I suppose I understood how fascist regimes destroyed certain artistic styles, but I never pondered what this meant about the potentials of those movements.

I do not remember The Court of the Red Tsar mentioning much about the response to his regime from intellectual circles. The need of an intellectual and artistic left outside of Russia to reckon with the Communist regime within Russia, the sole example of Communist statehood, is not a matter I previously considered.