This unique volume brings together a multi-disciplinary group of scholars as well as Czech and Slovak decisionmakers who were personally involved in the events leading up to the separation of Czechoslovakia.

Jan Carnogusky is chair of the Christian Democratic Party and was prime minister of the Slovak government from 1991 to 1992. Vaclav Havel is the current president of the Czech Republic and was the president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 to 1992. Stanley Hoffmann is Buttenwieser University Professor at Harvard University. Owen V. Johnson is professor of journalism at Indiana University. Petr Kopecky is lecturer in the department of politics at the University of Sheffield. Michael Kraus is Federick C. Dirks Professor of Economics and Political Science and chair of political science at Middlebury College. Daniel Kroupa has been a Czech senator since 1998 and was a member of Czech parliament from 1992 to 1996. Carol Skalnik Leff is associate professor of political science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Miroslav Macek is deputy chair of the Civic Democratic Party and was formerly deputy premier of the federal government of Czechoslovakia. Petr Pithart is deputy chair of the Czech Senate and was formerly prime minister of the Czech government from 1990 to 1992. Jan Rychlik is senior research historian at the T. G. Masaryk Institute in Prague and was advisor to Petr Pithart from 1991 to 1992. Allison Stanger is associate professor of political science and director of international politics and economics at Middlebury College. Jan Svejnar is Everett E. Berg Professor of Business Administration and executive director of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan Business School. She is also director of the Economics Institute at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Frantisek Turnovec is professor of economics at Charles University and director of the Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education (CERGE) at Charles University in Prague. Martin Vadas is associate professor at the Academy of Creative Arts and was director of the news division at Czechoslovak Federal Television in 1992. Sharon Wolchik is professor of political science at George Washington University. Peter Sajac is director of the Institute of Slovak Literature at the Slovak Academy of Sciences and was formerly the leader of the Public Against Violence. Milan Zemko is director of the department of internal politics in the office of the president of Slovakia and was formerly a historian at Comenius University.