I am from Slovakia, born and raised, and have been reading a lot into history these past few years. I am passionate about European history, WW1, WW2, Germany, France, Spain, etc. But my deepest interests are and have always been those of my homeland, Slovakia. I have searched quite a bit for reading material on Slovakia or Czechoslovakia, to little avail. There are some books that I found, but I am not confident of their quality or reputation to pick them up.
So my question is, does anybody have any good reading suggestions or books to recommend for any form of Slovak or Czech history? I'd be interested in anything that could encompass these two entities. A book about Bohemia or Moravia could suffice, as those are technically the ancestors of the Czechs. Even a good reading on Austria-Hungary could do, or a book about an event central to Slovaks or Czechs, like the Prague Spring or Velvet Revolution for example. If it focuses enough on the Czech or Slovak elements, I will read it!
Thank you for any and all readings and recommendations!
In regards to Slovakia, I know of one recent book that specifically covers the history if the country: *A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival * by Stanislav J. Kirschbaum. It is more a political history, but does go back centuries and is specifically about Slovakia.
I'm Slovak myself and I also had some problems with finding a good book. If you don't mind reading in Slovak, I've recently tried a book Slovenské dejiny I by Matúš Kučera. I'm not a historian but he passed some basic checks I learned here and he seems to have solid reputation. /u/bemonk is the local expert on Czech and partially also Slovak history. He may be able to confirm or deny this and possibly recommend something else.
I have no expertise in this field, but I do off the top of my head know of an historian who specializes in Czech history. Hugh Agnew writes on Czech nationalism and had a book in 2004 The Czechs and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. I have not read it myself, but at the very least you could use his bibliography. Just now I searched Agnew's book to see what other recommendations came up and a more recent book, A History of the Czech Lands edited by Jaroslav Pánek appeared. Maybe those will be useful to you.
So this a fun pop-history book, but seriously, if you don't know that much about Czech history at all I really loved reading "Czechs in a Nutshell" I can tell you personally that it's eerily accurate at getting the feel for czech culture, and it's all based on history. So there's a section on Hockey, Sokol, the Velvel Revolution, etc. It's light and humorous.
The best actual book is "Prague in Black and Gold" which goes back to the beginning of Prague (and therefore the Czech Republic) and touches on all major events in a well researched way.
Those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. I have a few weird esoteric ones on Prague for my Alchemy Podcast. And I think I have one on the noble families and their histories. That ties it all together with Austria, etc. (I'm not at home right now, so I can't check the title atm) When I get home I'll take a look at my books and see if I'd recommend anything else.
There is, of course, always http://bohemican.com our podcast on the Czech Republic. Honestly that is what I'd recommend the most ;) ..but it's not just off of books, we also do interviews, etc. A lot of it is google translated from Czech websites, etc. But it seems like this is exactly what you're asking for... we still have a way to go, so we haven't talked about all the great topics, but we've partially covered everything you mentioned. (An episode on the 1st Republic, the vast infrastructure Bat'a was planning, etc. is coming up soon.)
I would also suggest a history of the Czech Republic, The Czechs and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown by Hugh Agnew. I haven't read it myself so can't specifically comment on its contents, but it is from the Hoover Institution's (of Stanford University) Studies of Nationalities series, and thus may be of interest. They also apparently have published Slovakia: From Samo to Dzurinda by Peter A. Toma and Dušan Kovác, but again I have not read it, only know of the series itself.