Before she turned twelve, Madeleine Albright's life was shaken by the Nazi invasion of her native Czechoslovakia, the Battle of Britain, the attempted destruction of European Jewry, the Allied victory in World War II, the rise of communism, and the onset of the Cold War. Drawing on her memory, her parents' written reflections, interviews with contemporaries, and newly-available documents, Albright recounts a tale of these years that is by turns harrowing and inspiring. The book takes readers from the Bohemian capital's thousand-year-old castle to the bomb shelters of London, from the desolate prison ghetto of Terezin to the highest councils of European and American government. At once a deeply personal memoir and an incisive work of history, Prague Winter serves as a guide to the future through the lessons of the past—as seen through the eyes of one of the international community's most respected and fascinating figures.