Images Gone With Time: Photographic Reflections Of Slovak Life 1950-1963 is a fascinating and visual historical and anthropological record of a place and way of life now gone. Igor Grossman's starkly beautiful black-and-white photographs capture the essence of Slovak village life in a mountainous region of Central Europe at the moment of encounter between the old ways and the new day of European development, when centuries of tradition were about to give way to the modern age. This is a striking survey, a powerful visual tool documenting what was about to be altered forever by the technologies and ideologies of the second half of the twentieth century. An informative text by Martin Slivka places the images into a sound cultural context and enhanced Images Gone With Time as a significant and invaluable overview of a people and a way-of-life now but a bit of European history, a yesteryear culture that will never come again.

I've never seen a travel book quite like this one. I enjoyed the adventures and the writer's voice.

Authentic, few words wasted, chilling, a nightmare retold. A warning about how communism can eat a country and kill people. The depth of common men committing senseless crimes against each other described by a survivor. A warning against being complacent in the face of totalitarianism. Don't trust any totalitarian communist regime in a large country, or in a small country.
This is the real memory of a humble man, not made up. Kopasci was a compassionate man, but he has seen the horrors.

To understand Hungary between 1945 and the 1970s, this is an important book to read.
If your parents have fled Hungary in 1956, this may help you understand. Buy a copy to keep in the family. Don't forget.

I knew Victor Varconi. He was a family friend that I met when I was younger and he lived in Santa Barbara. I met him, his wife, and listen to stories about Hollywood in the "Golden Era."

This book tells some wonderful memories that Victor had as an actor in the early days of Hollywood. Mr. Varconi was in the orginal 1929 (I believe that is the correct year,) of "The King of Kings," where he played Pontious Pilate. The funniest story in the book was when he assisted an American director named Emil Jennings woo Vilma Bankins (a fellow Hungarian.) While Mr. Jennings thought Victor was teaching him to say "I love you" he was being taught to say "go to hell" instead. This is a great book. It tells how he had to overcome some obstacles in Hollywood, especially at the discovery of "talkies" and Victor had a heavy accent.

Mr. Varconi has been dead for several years. But Hollywood is a better place because of his movies.

This is an excellant book. Unlike many others, it gives you more than the title suggests. It actually starts in the 1820's, and gives a brief synopsis of the Jews in Vienna before this period also. The basic format of the book is to concentrate on the main figures and issues that Viennese Jewry faced in the different periods that the book covers. The author gives a quite fair treatment to all of the figures in the period irregardless of their political or religious views, and open-mindedly examines the issues that Viennese Jewry faced and the decisions that they made. Viennese Jewry in this period was very important and instructive. Of course the most famous figure is Theodore Hertzl, who is treated at length. Vienna at the time had a very diverse Jewish community. It ranged from the super assimilated aristicratic Jews like the Rothchilds and Baron Hirsh to the ultra-Orthodox immigrants from Galicia. The issues that they faced ranged from assimilation, Zionism, anti-Semitism, to inter-Jewish relations.

I am in awe of the incredible richness of this slender book -- of its artistry; its grand design; the breadth of its imaginings; the sometimes limpid,sometimes electric language; the hidden insights shing through twists of plot; the tricks, the jokes, the games.

Leviant is worthy of the inner circle -- the first ring of authors who need no first names. He's been compared,in his inventiveness, in his playfulness, in his freedom from the ordinary bonds of fiction, to Joyce, Kundera, Nabokov, Borges, Bellow.

But comparisons to the contrary, Leviant is an original. He's hard to categorize. He is a wildly mystical writer -- and more. He is a wildly comic writer -- and more. He is a deeply learned writer -- and more. He is an experimental post-modernist -- and more. This multiplicity of gifts makes his books rich and dense and rewarding.

This is a superb study of the social and political world of Hungary in the 18th century. By focussing on the Esterhazy's, one of Hungary's most prominent families, the author is able to touch on almost every aspect of social, economic, religious, and political life in middle Europe during the 18th century. From this masterful study, it is easier to understand the social and political unrest that erupted in the major uprisings of 1848 and later resulted in immigration to North America by Austro-Hungarian subjects. I wish that the book had been longer and that the author had been able to expand on each of the chapters.

exellent visual and historical document please advise publishers of the following p201 liberation photo, it is J Krammer with british gaurds at belsen not Fritz Klein revisionist would love that let us never forget.

what a fabulous book! well-written, accurate, and *funny*-- i can't stand how good this book is!

Zoltan Bay was an internationally recognized physicist and the head of the research team of the Tungsram company (the Hungarian GE). The book is about a difficult era from the early 40's to the late 40's, when Hungary suffered first from the Nazi and later the Russian (Communist) occupation. Zoltan Bay and his fellows manage to make Tungsram survive the Nazi occupation. However, after the end of the WWII the new, even bigger manace to the company are the barbarous Russian soldiers "liberating" Hungary, and later the Hungarian communist party. The humanity gets defeeted and Tungsram is nationalized. Bay is forced to escape from Hungary but he never gives up hope, from where the title is originated. The book is an excellent portrayal of the true face of communism.