Millions of visitors come to Prague each year, drawn by its rich cultural heritage and visual splendour, yet knowing little of its extraordinary past. In this erudite, paradoxical history Peter Demetz dispels the popular sentimental image of his hometown as he tells the story of this great city from its origins through the devastation of the Thirty Years' War, the elegant eras of Mozart and Dvorák and the bleak, modern city depicted in Kafka's work, to the euphoria of the Velvet Revolution of 1989.