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Ethan Scheiner, professor of Political Science at the University of California-Davis, stops by to discuss his fascinating, important and timely new book, Freedom to Win.

Here are some highlights –

3:23-6:23: “The thing that is so incredible about this story is that it is an unbelievable marriage of politics and sports. That really is the thing that jumps right out. … This communist country, Czechoslovakia, which had started to become free, suddenly got invaded by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union said, ‘We’re not gonna allow this country to become free,’ and so all of a sudden the people of this little country were crushed. And they found that there was only one way they could fight back. … So they turned their whole world into supporting their team to try to fight back against the Soviets on the ice, and I just sat there going, ‘This is actually politics and sports completely overlapping. I think this is the greatest story I’ve ever heard.’”

14:08-15:36: “It took me a little while to realize that I actually had to tell the story from a more personal angle. At first, I just thought the history of hockey in Czechoslovakia was so amazing, that it was this country where hockey was so central to fighting the Soviets. … I thought that was enough. … ‘The great narrative nonfiction books, the things that really draw people in, are really focused on individual human beings at extraordinary times, so you need to focus more on the individual human beings.’ Then all of a sudden, I said, ‘Oh, my gosh. This Holík family has had this extraordinary history that actually also at the same time tells the story of this incredible country, and it’s woven into this unbelievable story of hockey and sports fitting in with everything.’”

32:06-35:27: “At one time, the communists in Czechoslovakia had imprisoned the national hockey team and sent two guys and sentenced them to 15 years in the uranium mines. So people actually thought that the Soviets had forced their hockey to die so that the Soviet team could become good. And so as time went by and Czechoslovakia had a hockey team again, people thought they weren’t allowed to beat the Soviets. So this was all part of this sense in Czechoslovakia, ‘The Soviets are keeping us down, and they’re using the communists to do it.’ … The Soviets won the 1968 Gold medal, but Czechoslovakia was so happy to have beaten the Soviets. And people actually got a sense of ‘You know what? We actually seem to have real freedom now. We even are allowed to beat the Soviets.’ They actually believed that.”

47:20-48:06: “We tend to think of democracies falling apart because a bunch of people in the streets start chanting and come in and run roughshod over those in power, and then suddenly grab the gavel and say, ‘OK, we’re in charge now,’ sort of Doctor Evil style. But more common, what happens is people gain power through free and fair elections, but then use the instruments of power to completely undercut democracy. And so that’s a big fear that people have [that] could be happening in the United States; that’s certainly what happened in Czechoslovakia.”

58:07-59:07: “We’ve heard this chant before when we get to 1989, as now there are hundreds of thousands of people in Wenceslas Square, and they start chanting, ‘Dubček! Dubček! Dubček!’ over and over. And he steps out onto this balcony as 300,000 people are chanting his name. And so he hasn’t been seen for 20 years, and he’s this symbol of hope, and they’re chanting his name. And in this moment, he had planned on reading some remarks, but he’s so touched by the moment he pantomimes embracing the crowd. … It’s a stunning moment.”

Be sure to check out Freedom to Win

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Music: “Who Likes to Party” by Kevin MacLeod.