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Focusing on the striking contradiction between destruction and care, violent repression, and the simultaneous development of the welfare state,
Nations Apart brings a new revisionist interpretation of an occupied society.
List of contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Tables
- Note on the Text and Transliteration
- Abbreviations
- Maps
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1: Social Security during State-Building
- 2: The 'Autumn Revolution' and the Reconstruction of the State and Society
- 3: Community-Building through Authoritarian Welfare
- 4: Towards Workfare Communities
- 5: Health Care in Warfare
- 6: Family Policies for Segregated Nations
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Radka %Sustrová is a lecturer in Social History at Charles University in Prague. She studied history and political science in Prague and Berlin. Her research focuses on the history of the welfare state, social justice, social and labour rights, women's activism, and nationalism in 20th-century central Europe. From 2020 to 2022, she was a British Academy Newton International Fellow and supervisor in history at the University of Cambridge. In 2022, she was awarded a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship at the University of Vienna. Her further publications include three books, several edited volumes, and articles in English, German, and Czech.
Summary
Focusing on the striking contradiction between destruction and care, violent repression, and the simultaneous development of the welfare state, Nations Apart brings a new revisionist interpretation of an occupied society.
Additional text
Czech workers were so integral to Germany's war economy that the Nazi state never contemplated deporting them eastward with other Slavs. Instead, that state took good care of their wages, benefits, and employment, with Czech officials helping at every step [...] Using sources unknown to western audiences Radka %Sustrová ponders the implications of her unsettling findings: was the occupation amoral collaboration, pragmatic professional cooperation, or an early and necessary stage of a modern welfare state, a prerequisite for today's democracy? In one of the most provocative and revealing books to appear on society and war for several decades, %Sustrová allows readers to judge for themselves.
