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New book published: Marek Skovajsa and Jan Balon on Sociology in the Czech Republic

Marek Skovajsa (Faculty of Humanities, Charles University) and Jan Balon (Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University) have published a new book titled Sociology in the Czech Republic: Between East and West (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

Their book, the outcome of a project funded by the Czech Science Foundation (GA ČR), offers the first comprehensive overview in English of the history of sociology in what is today the Czech Republic. Divided into seven chapters, it traces the institutional development of the discipline from the late 19th century until the present, with an emphasis on the periods most favorable for sociology’s institutionalization: the interwar years, the 1960s and the post-1989 era. The authors place the institutions, persons and ideas that have been central to the discipline into the broader social and political context. Skovajsa and Balon show that sociology in the Czech Republic has been wedded to the dominant political projects of each successive historical period: nation- and state-building until after WWII, the communist experiment in 1948-1989, liberal democratic reconstruction after 1989, and internationalization after 2000. This work can be of interest to students of social sciences and to a general readership interested in Czech culture and society.