The Power of the Powerless

Author(s): Havel Vaclav

Culture & Ideas

Václav Havel's remarkable and rousing essay on the tyranny of apathy, with a new introduction by Timothy Snyder


Cowed by life under Communist Party rule, a greengrocer hangs a placard in their shop window: Workers of the world, unite! Is it a sign of the grocer's unerring ideology? Or a symbol of the lies we perform to protect ourselves?


Written in 1978, Václav Havel's meditation on political dissent - the rituals of its suppression, and the sparks that re-ignite it - would prove the guiding manifesto for uniting Solidarity movements across the Soviet Union. A portrait of activism in the face of falsehood and intimidation, The Power of the Powerless remains a rousing call against the allure of apathy.


'Havel's diagnosis of political pathologies has a special resonance in the age of Trump' Pankaj Mishra


Product Information

General Fields

  • : 9781784875046
  • : Penguin Random House
  • : Penguin Books Ltd
  • : 0.170097
  • : December 2018
  • : ---length:- '7'width:- '4.25'units:- Inches
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : 160
  • : 1812
  • : Paperback
  • : Havel Vaclav