The Last Palace

even proposing to Martha here. Old trees reared up, tall and shaggy. Hedges ran among them, stands of flowers, swaths of lawn. In the distance, Otto could hear the clop-clop of horses hooves, the day s first carts delivering produce, ice, and milk to his neighbors homes.

Farther behind him and this unformed tangle of land, to the east, was the heart of Prague: the city center where Otto was born, the synagogue where he was bar mitzvahed, the schools where he was educated, the business that he had helped build. He was a model citizen of the Czechoslovak capital. Still, every morning he looked to the west: to Germany, for language and literature; to France, for art and architecture; to England, whose business acumen he admired; and across the Atlantic to the United States, whose energy he embraced, grateful for its role in creating the fledgling Czechoslovak state. In the predawn haze, if he squinted he could imagine the curvature of the earth beneath his huge expanse of land and trace its arc, a vector connecting him to each of the nations he admired.

Music was likely running through Otto s head. It was his first great passion, and he remained an intense classical aficionado, a sustainer of Prague s German Opera, and an ardent Wagnerian, admiring the composer s heroes and their appetite for daunting challenges. Perhaps this morning he heard the low thrum of strings that launched Das Rheingold, the day stirring like the instruments, the tones spreading like the sun.

While listening to his invisible orchestra and watching the dawn rise day after day over his sprawling, overgrown property, Otto had formed an idea about what to do with his land.

He would build a palace there one that would compete with any other in the city. It would be huge, more than one hundred rooms, the entire length of a city block. Its façade would marry the mathematicall

enthralling history of a palace and its very real ghosts. By telling the story of the Prague mansion where he resided as America s ambassador, Eisen provides a poignant reflection on the haunting twists of the past century, including his own very American family tale.   Walter Isaacson


Moving, engaging, and elegantly written, The Last Palace wears its erudition lightly, casts its radiant intelligence fearlessly into the darkest corners of the twentieth century and, effortlessly, reliably, breaks your heart again and again.   Michael Chabon

Combining both the personal and the historical, Norman Eisen s remarkable book transports us into the battle for democracy through the lives of people who fought to save it and those who would seek to destroy it. The Last Palace is not only a first-rate work of history, but a call to action written at a time of urgent need. Madeleine Albright

At a time when we find ourselves newly nostalgic for courageous public officials and American leadership on behalf of human rights, Eisen has written a pearl of a book. Using an ornate palace in Prague as the backdrop for his fast-paced narrative, Eisen tells the tale of the last stormy century through the eyes of several vibrant characters who helped shape it from a stubborn businessman who, Willy Wonka-like, builds an implausibly ornate palace as war clouds loom; to Shirley Temple Black, the Czech-American envoy who acts decisively in the side of dissidents during the Velvet Revolution; to Eisen himself, who, as Obama s ambassador to the Czech Republic, raises his voice on behalf of human rights amid growing populism and extremism. The Last Palace is a great read and a stirring reminder of the importance of decency in public life.   Samantha Power
 
As America s Ambassador in Prague, Norman Eisen had an extraordinary relationship with the Czech Republic and its history: his mother said the Nazis took her family out in boxcars and her son came back on Air Force One. The Last Palace combines human drama with geopolitical and historical sweep and does it with evident love and painstaking investigation. John Kerry

Norman Eisen pulls back the curtains to reveal history s secrets in this rich, personal, and wise book. Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money

What a revelation! With this moving memoir and history, Norman Eisen enters the front rank of writers.  A truly riveting read. David Axelrod, author of Believer

Enchanting and fascinating, The Last Palace is a splendid journey through a century of modern European history, and a love letter to liberal democracy. From the adventures of an obsessive baron to the anti-Communist resistance of ambassador-actress Shirley Temple Black to his own tenure as Barack Obama s envoy to Prague, Norman Eisen brings the inhabitants of a storied residence, and their tumultuous times, to life.    Chris Whipple, author of the New York Times bestseller The Gatekeepers

Eisen has written a book rich with detail, in spellbinding prose. The Last Palace reads like a novel a page-turner beautifully intertwining the compelling stories of families and individuals to tell a stirring story of the twentieth century.  The story is centered around a remarkable palace in Prague, but the story of the house is in fact the story of tragedy, cruelty, genocide, courage and its lack, from the 1920s through the Second World War and the Holocaust, the Prague Spring and brutal Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, the country s subsequent freedom and its aftermath, up to the present day. I came to the book expecting a memoir, but The Last Palace is far more than that. Norm Ornstein
 
The Last Palace is a great piece of work: a compelling story and so elegantly written. A wonderful read. David Corn

A well-told story for readers interested in Czechoslovakia, its creation, its fall to fascism and then communism, and rescue from both.   Kirkus Reviews

  The history of a remarkable mansion and its times this fascinating work will appeal to those interested in 20th century history.   Library Journal