The events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia, usually referred to as the Prague Spring, remain among the most important in the political history of postwar Eastern Europe, and of Europe as a whole. Not surprisingly, a sizeable literature has arisen dealing with those events, and another study might not immediately appear needed. There are several interrelated reasons, however, to warrant it. The first is the change of perspective made possible by the passage of three decades, the revolution in Czechoslovakia after November 1989, the end of Soviet hegemony in Central Europe, and the discrediting of the idea of reform communism with the failure of perestroika.

Secondly, many of the existing studies of 1968, though of high quality and enduring value, date from the mid-1970s and are coloured by the prevailing concerns of that period, and many have been long out of print.

A third reason is that events in the former Soviet bloc have allowed the release of thousands of previously classified documents, which gives us a new opportunity to go beyond speculation based on limited public sources or partial memoir material when analysing élite strategies and interaction.

Finally, there is a new, post-1989 generation of students and lay readers who have become interested in the history of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet bloc, and who require a reasonably concise introduction to a period that shaped the entire second half of the communist era in Czechoslovakia and still generates controversy in the successor states.