This book outlines the history of Slovakia over the last hundred years, and explains the importance of Hungarian legacies, as well as its development in a common state with the Czechs. Examining Slovakia's political development since independence in 1993, it traces the elements of democratic stability that were a backdrop to the more dramatic and turbulent events of the 1990s. Consideration is also given to independent Slovakia's international relations, following its path to Euro-Atlantic integration amidst the diversions of squabbling with its neighbours. Finally, Slovakia's economic progress is summarised: both the underlying positive trends as well as the more sensational aberrations in its rapid construction of a functioning market economy.