The Golden Maze: A Biography of Prague

Thirty years after his experience of the Velvet Revolution, Fidler returns to Prague to uncover the glorious and grotesque history of Europe’s most instagrammed and uncanny city, a city that has survived plagues, pogroms, Nazi terror and Soviet tanks. Founded in the ninth century, Prague gave the world the golem, the robot and the world’s biggest statue of Stalin.

Fidler tells the story of the reclusive emperor who brought the world’s most brilliant minds to Prague Castle to uncover the occult secrets of the universe. He explores the Black Palace, the wartime headquarters of the Nazi SS, and he meets victims of the communist secret police. Reaching back into Prague’s mythic past, he finds the city’s founder, the pagan priestess Libussa who prophesised: I see a city whose glory will touch the stars.

Following the story of Prague from its origins in medieval darkness to its uncertain present, Fidler does what he does so well - curates an absolutely engaging and compelling history of a place. You will learn things you never knew, with a tour guide who is erudite, inquisitive and the best storyteller you could have as your companion.