Talks with T.G. Masaryk

Never have two such important world figures collaborated in a biography: Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850-1937), the original Philosopher-President who founded Czechoslovakia in 1918, and Karel ?apek (1890-1938), the leading Czech writer of the time. ?apek interviewed Masaryk over a number of years and produced a single narrative that tells Masaryk's incredible story in a voice as ordinary yet magical as the best of ?apek's fictional characters. The result is a biographical work like no other, in form or in content. It is the story of how a poor country boy, half Czech, half Slovak, got himself an education, married a girl from Brooklyn, became a philosophy professor, and grew increasingly controversial by defending a young Jew accused of ritual murder and by unmasking Czech historical sagas as forgeries. Woven through the narrative are Masaryk's thoughts about everything from nationalism and religion to education and America. He is one of the most fascinating human beings any of us will ever meet, even in books. Masaryk's life and thoughts were the inspiration for Václav Havel and the Velvet Revolution. In fact, the first two stamps issued by the new government in 1989 were matching stamps of Masaryk and ?apek.