Bruce Berglund’s fascinating Castle and Cathedral in Modern Prague, published in Czech in January, focuses on the early years of Czechoslovakia, when President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk was forging the new state. This included making Prague Castle the symbolic heart of the new democracy and, Berglund writes, an ambitious plan for a new religion for the country that TGM founded in 1918. I spoke to the historian from his home in Minnesota.
One thing I found really fascinating in your book is when you say that Masaryk had this idea of, with the new country, also creating a new religion? What exactly was he hoping to achieve with that? Or what was it even?
Ice hockey is now a global sport. Even Brazil, Mexico, Jamaica, and Australia have national teams. The National Hockey League has teams in Miami, Tampa Bay, Dallas, Nashville, and Phoenix. Junior league hockey is played in Shreveport and Amarillo. Anyone who wants to understand hockey today must not only tell a story about skates, rinks,…