". . . a history of Carniola (Slovenia) is a necessity for school and home," relates author August Dimitz as he substantiates his reasons for writing a 1,500+-page book (in the German language) about Slovenia in 1875. What better person was there to write this work that focuses on the cultural development of the Slovene people than Dimitz who served as the Secretary of the Carniolan (Slovenian) Historical Society for over 25 years during the mid 1800s. The Slovenian Genealogy Society International, Inc., recognized the value of Dimitz' work and had it translated into English and published in four volumes, realizing this work is an incomparable historical resource for all English-speaking Slovenes and their descendants. A "must read" for anyone interested in knowing the history of Slovenia from primeval times to 1813.

If you would like to know the names of the royalty and learn about their castles and their holdings, you will find the information in Volume IV annotated primarily from Valvosar's writings. Fascinating facts abound including the rise and then the suppression of the Jesuits. Empress Maria Theresa accedes to the throne of the Habsburg monarchy and brings about needed changes in education, agriculture, land reform, and roads to name a few. To increase the welfare of the state, she liberated farmers from serfdom, from the pressures of statutory labor, and from urbarial taxes. The invasion of Napoleon occurred in 1797. The reforms he brought to Slovenia were long lasting.

A realistic portrayal of the Turkish invasions and their effect on the population's daily lives is brought to light in Volume II of Dimitz' work. Peasant uprisings plagued the region's growth. The beginnings of the Reformation take root, especially in Laibach (Ljubljana) where most of the nobles and better educated Slovenes lived; Primus Truber, one of the leaders of the Protestant movement, wrote and published the first book in the Slovene language; and the cultural history of the cities is documented regarding trade and industry, mining and land management, law and government, finance, estates and nobility, sanitary matters and humanitarian activity, clergy and religious orders, schools, morality and police, arts, authors, and famous men.

Religious problems continue. All Protestants are ordered to leave the country if they continue to practice the teachings of Protestantism. Dimitz relates how and why the largest peasant uprising (over 20,000 in total) took place in response to unacceptable demands placed upon them by their caretakers. In this era the Turks are finally defeated, postal service begins, hospitals are built, and roads are improved. Counter- reformation begins in the larger cities and market towns and ends under Ferdinand II.

In the quiet farmland of southeastern Slovenia the people of the Mirna Valley endured rule by feudal lords and the Habsburg Empire for over a thousand years. In the early 1600�s, the Bevc Family worked the land in the small village of _entrupert. Three generations and over a hundred years later, their descendants moved to the Debenec hills overlooking the Mirna Valley. The family acquired more land and spread to the nearby towns of Mokronog and Mirna. Economic conditions prompted immigration by almost one-third of the Slovenian people. One Bevc generation, a family of eleven children, found different futures in America or Slovenia. Most traded the green hills and hard work of farming for the harsh life of mining coal in a smoky, industrial town. Each withstood hardships so that their children would have a better life. Many of those children fought in World War II. In Slovenia that meant occupation and Partisan resistance; in America, sons went off to war in Europe and the Pacific.

Every nation develops a narrative structure for thinking about history that is generated by its own historical experience. In this study, the German and Austrian-German “historias”—the way narratives of factual significance are structured as the “story” of events—are shown in their sameness from the late 1600s to the present. This “historia” shapes the emphasis of how meaning is articulated among the historians of a society. The author argues that German and Austrian-German societies would benefit from understanding the constrictions and oversights generated by the narrative style of their traditional historias.

The often turbulent history of the Czechs and Slovaks in the 20th Century, leading from the Czechoslovak Republic to four decades of communist rule, ended with the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The independent Czech and Slovak democracies achieved EU membership in 2004. While their political histories under Austrian and Hungarian rule in 19th Century has been widely researched, their intellectual history is still largely unknown, mainly due to a lack of English translations. Preparing Liberty in Central Europe provides a collection of newly translated texts by Czech and Slovak intellectuals and political thinkers, covering the period of time from the Spring of Nations in 1848 to the Spring of Prague in 1968. The collection includes Ján Kollár’s On literary reciprocity, T.G. Masaryk’s The difficulties of Democracy and the debate about the Czech Fate between Václav Havel and Milan Kundera in 1968/9. The volume addresses students of history, philosophy, political science and Slavic Studies, interested in issues such as Slavonic national revival, Panslavism, Austroslavism, liberalism and Human Rights. Additional comments on text and author guide the reader through one hundred and thirty years of Czech and Slovak political thought. A large selected bibliography and index complement the volume.