The past few years have seen the publication of a number of important contributions to the historiography of the Prague Spring of 1968, the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in August that year and the process of so-called ‘normalisation’ in the country and the wider communist world. The Czechoslovak crisis of 1968–9 has never really ceased to inspire either scholarly research or passionate public and political debate. It has attracted even more attention, though, since its thirtieth anniversary in 1998, and a state-of-the-art essay seems appropriate.