The education of a Canadian : my life as a scholar and activist / H. Gordon Skilling.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Skilling, H. Gordon (Harold Gordon), 1912-2001.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Skilling, H. Gordon (Harold Gordon), 1912-2001.

Skilling, H. Gordon.

Communism--History--20th century.

Communism.

Scholars--Canada--Biography.

Scholars.

Political activists--Canada--Biography.

Political activists.

College teachers--Canada--Biography.

College teachers.

Czechoslovakia--Politics and government--1945-1992.

Czechoslovakia.

Physical Description:

xiii, 450 p. : ill., ports. ; 24 cm.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Montreal ; Ithaca : Published for Carleton University by McGill-Queen's University Press, c2000.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Gordon Skilling writes candidly of each way station in this personal odyssey: the idealism of his student years at the University of Toronto and Oxford; his presence in Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Nazi, and later Soviet, invasions; his opposition to the Marshall Plan, NATO, and U.S. intervention in Korea; the effect of McCarthyism on his academic life; his involvement with the Czech and Slovak dissident movements and finally the Velvet Revolution. The Education of a Canadian also captures conversations with writers, journalists, scholars, and myriad friends throughout Russia and Eastern Europe (including Havel, Djilas, and Sakharov), making this history a distinctly human yet forceful document of profound humanity and international scope.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Illustrations

Foreword

Preface

Death of a Country

Getting my Bearings

Growing up on College Street

Becoming a Socialist: Toronto

Moving to the Left: Oxford

Embarking on Czech Studies: London and Prague

War and Cold War

The War Years: The Midwest and Montreal

The “Wisconsin Idea” and the United Nations

The Cold War Begins: Stalinism in Prague

The Cold War Deepens: Mccarthyism in the U.S.

Changing Faces of Communism

Russian and East European Studies: Toronto

Probing the Enigma of Communism*

Journeys East from Vienna

A Summer of Ferment: Prague and Bratislava

The Interrupted Revolution

Neo-Stalinism: Socialism with Goose-Flesh

Sowing the Seeds of Freedom

Charter 77

In Defence of Human Rights

An Emerging Civil Society: Vaclav Havel

The Velvet Revolution: Independence and Partition

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-282-86429-7

9786612864292

0-7735-7418-2

OCLC:

180704107