The Power of the Powerless (Contemporary Politics)

by Vaclav Havel and Et Al

Timothy Snyder (Introduction)

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Book cover for The Power of the Powerless

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Václav Havel’s remarkable and rousing essay on the tyranny of apathy, with a new introduction by Timothy Snyder

Cowed by life under Communist Party rule, a greengrocer hangs a placard in their shop window: Workers of the world, unite! Is it a sign of the grocer’s unerring ideology? Or a symbol of the lies we perform to protect ourselves?

Written in 1978, Václav Havel’s meditation on political dissent – the rituals of its suppression, and the sparks that re-ignite it – would prove the guiding manifesto for uniting Solidarity movements across the Soviet Union. A portrait of activism in the face of falsehood and intimidation, The Power of the Powerless remains a rousing call against the allure of apathy.

'Havel’s diagnosis of political pathologies has a special resonance in the age of Trump' Pankaj Mishra

  • ISBN10 178487504X
  • ISBN13 9781784875046
  • Publish Date 27 September 2018 (first published 26 September 1985)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher Vintage Publishing
  • Imprint Vintage Classics