Having won a two-third majority in Parliament at the 2010 elections, the Hungarian political party Fidesz removed many of the institutional obstacles of exerting power. Just like the party, the state itself was placed under the control of a single individual, who since then has applied the techniques used within his party to enforce submission and obedience onto society as a whole. In a new approach the author characterizes the system as the ?organized over-world?, the ?state employing mafia methods? and the ?adopted political family', applying these categories not as metaphors but elements of a coherent conceptual framework. The actions of the post-communist mafia state model are closely aligned with the interests of power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a small group of insiders. While the traditional mafia channeled wealth and economic players into its spheres of influence by means of direct coercion, the mafia state does the same by means of parliamentary legislation, legal prosecution, tax authority, police forces and secret service. The innovative conceptual framework of the book is important and timely not only for Hungary, but also for other post-communist countries subjected to autocratic rules. ÿ

A comprehensive history of the land, people, society, culture and economy of Hungary.

Magyar Origins offers a reasonable hypothesis that Hungarian and its related languages of Finnish and Estonian are related to Sanskrit, working out a proposed linguistic law that affected how Sanskrit words were absorbed into Hungarian. A finely researched blend of genealogy and language studies, Magyar Origins presents a strong and well-reasoned case. --Midwest Book Review This is the second edition, a third edition is now available and is a complete rewrite. ISBN 978-1501006357 Do you think you know where Hungarians came from? Odds are what you were told was based on myths or politics and almost no science. This book explores the roots behind these myths and how they originated. Exploring both DNA and cultural evidence this book explores the possibility that Hungarian, and its related Uralic languages, evolved as a form of Sanskrit slang. Not evolving directly from Sanskrit but was the result of refugees fleeing to the Hindu Kush region and learning a new language before migrating north to Siberia. Evidence is presented to show that the Magyars were practicing a form of Vedic-Hinduism, the root of both Buddhism and Hinduism, when they arrived in Europe and were not Shamanistic as is commonly believed. Core words that are not usually adopted between languages are shown to be the same between Hungarian and Sanskrit. Some examples include: Bird: Hungarian 'madar' = Sanskrit 'madura' Dung: Hungarian 'szar' = Sanskrit 'sAra' Fist: Hungarian 'kez' = Sanskrit 'kAzi' More importantly the conceptual adoption of Sanskrit into the various Uralic languages is demonstrated as the primary driving force for word evolution. Words are not primarily adopted based on word = word but instead based on what the characteristics of the object are. For example the Hungarian word for duck 'kacsa' does not equal the word for duck in either Finnish or Estonian. Instead it corresponds to their words for water, 'kastella' and 'kastma'. By extending this conceptual adoption to Sanskrit we see that the Sanskrit word for water is 'kASTha'. Linguistic evidence is provided to show not just similarities between the languages of Hungarian and Sanskrit but the patterns followed when Hungarian words were adopted from Sanskrit."

*Includes pictures *Includes excerpts of contemporary accounts *Includes a bibliography for further reading "Having crossed the Danube, they encamped beside the Danube as far as Budafelhévíz. Hearing this, all the Romans living throughout the land of Pannonia, saved their lives by flight. Next day, Prince Árpád and all his leading men with all the warriors of Hungary entered the city of King Attila and they saw all the royal palaces, some ruined to the foundations, others not, and they admired beyond measure the stone buildings and were happier than can be told that they had deserved to take without fighting the city of King Attila, of whose line Prince Árpád descended. They feasted every day with great joy in the palace of King Attila, sitting alongside one another, and all the melodies and sweet sounds of zithers and pipes along with all the songs of minstrels were presented to them ... Prince Árpád gave great lands and properties to the guests staying with them, and, when they heard this, many guests thronged to him and gladly stayed with him." - An excerpt from Gesta Hungarorum Of all the steppe peoples in the medieval period, perhaps none were more important to European history than the Magyars. Like the Huns and Avars before them and the Cumans and Mongols after them, the Magyars burst into Europe as a destructive, unstoppable horde, taking whatever they wanted and leaving a steady stream of misery in their wake. They used much of the same tactics as the other steppe peoples and lived a similar, nomadic lifestyle. The Magyars also had many early cultural affinities with other steppe peoples, following a similar religion and ideas of kingship and nobility, among other things. That said, as similar as the Magyars may have been to other steppe nomads before and after them, they were noticeably different in one way: the Magyars settled down and became a part of Europe and Western Civilization in the Middle Ages. The Magyars exploded onto the European cultural scene in the late 9th century as foreign marauders, but they made alliances with many important kingdoms in less than a century and established their own dynasty in the area, roughly equivalent to the modern nation-state of Hungary. After establishing themselves as a legitimate dynasty among their European peers, the Magyars formed a sort of cultural bridge between the Roman Catholic kingdoms of Western Europe and the Orthodox Christian kingdoms of Eastern Europe. Ultimately, the Magyars chose the Roman Catholic Church, thereby becoming a part of the West and tying their fate to it for the remainder of the Middle Ages. The Magyars: The History and Legacy of the Medieval Tribes that Established the Kingdom of Hungary examines the Magyars and their culture, from their origins through the Arpad Dynasty to their raids on Europe, the establishment of a royal dynasty, and their integration into Western Civilization, marking the transition from the Magyars to Hungarians. Along with pictures and a bibliography for further reading, you will learn about the Magyars like never before.

The discovery of a 25,000-year-old archaeological treasure, a rekindled romance, and a suspicious suicide send Toronto antiques dealer Lara McClintoch on a quest to the city of Budapest. Reprint.