Impact of Under a Cruel Star Anonymous College

Heda Margolius Kovály’s Under a Cruel Star recalls the social and political struggles in Prague between 1941 and 1968 that resulted directly from the Second World War and its aftermath during the Stalin era. Under a Cruel Star is a fantastic candidate for European history survey courses across the U.S. because it provides readers with a humanistic, primary account of the tragedies that shaped the history and development of Eastern Europe. This memoir can provide students with the opportunity to understand the humanity within these cataclysmic events in a significantly more meaningful way than reading about the statistics in a history textbook. Consequently, the value that this book will have to educators as a resource in their pursuit of helping students truly understand the monumental effects of these sociopolitical conditions will prove to be exceptionally beneficial for the firm financially as well.

Under a Cruel Star is distinctive as a historical text because it is a continuous narrative of successive political events that are heavily related to one another, which is very useful for understanding the chronological history of events as a fluid rather than as separate entities. Also, the speaker reflects the perspective of a...