Being Poland offers a unique analysis of the cultural developments that took place in Poland after World War One, a period marked by Poland’s return to independence. Conceived to address the lack of critical scholarship on Poland’s cultural restoration, Being Poland illuminates the continuities, paradoxes, and contradictions of Poland’s modern and contemporary cultural practices, and challenges the narrative typically prescribed to Polish literature and film.

Poland is a tenacious survivor-state: it was wiped off the map in 1795, resurrected after the First World War, apparently annihilated again in the Second, and reduced to satellite status of the Soviet Union after 1945. Yet it emerged in the vanguard of resistance to the USSR in the 1980s, albeit a much more homogenized entity than that characterized by its multi-ethnic past. This book outlines Poland's turbulent and complex history, from its medieval Christian origins to the reassertion of that Christian and European heritage after forty-five years of communism. It describes Poland's transformation since 1989, and explains how Poland navigated its way into a new Commonwealth of Nations in the European Union. Recent years have witnessed significant changes within Poland, Eastern Europe, and the wider world. This new edition reflects and examines the current issues facing a Poland which some would accuse of being out of touch with 'European values'.

This new edition of Norman Davies's classic study of the history of Poland has been revised and fully updated with two new chapters to bring the story to the end of the twentieth century. The writing of Polish history, like Poland itself, has frequently fallen prey to interested parties.Professor Norman Davies adopts a sceptical stance towards all existing interpretations and attempts to bring a strong dose of common sense to his theme. He presents the most comprehensive survey in English of this frequently maligned and usually misunderstood country.

This definitive study provides a comprehensive diplomatic history of Poland during the most seminal period in its existence, when its destiny lay in the hands of France, Great Britain, and the United States. Although sovereign in principle, Poland was little more than an object of the Great Powers' politics and rapidly changing relationships from the end of WWI to the end of WWII. Focusing on the shifting policies of the Great Powers toward Poland from the Treaty of Versailles to Yalta, the book ends with Poland's tragic abandonment by the West into the hands of the Soviet Union. Enriched by unique anecdotal and archival material, this book will be essential reading for all those seeking to understand Poland's role in twentieth-century history.

The image of Poland has once again been impressed on European consciousness. Norman Davies provides a key to understanding the modern Polish crisis in this lucid and authoritative description of the nation's history. Beginning with the period since 1945, he travels back in time to highlightthe long-term themes and traditions which have influenced present attitudes. His evocative account reveals Poland as the heart of Europe in more than the geographical sense. It is a country where Europe's ideological conflicts are played out in their most acute form: as recent events have emphasized, Poland's fate is of vital concern to European civilization as a whole. This revised and updated edition tackles and analyses the issues arising from the fall of the Eastern Block, and looks at Poland's future within a political climate of democracy and free market.

Inspired by the spatial turn in the humanities and social sciences, Mapping Warsaw is an interdisciplinary study that combines urban studies, cinema studies, cultural studies, history, literature, and photography. It examines Warsaw's post-World War II reconstruction through images and language.

There is a chapter of World War 2 history that remains largely untold: the story of the fourth largest Allied military of the war, and the only nation to have fought in the battles of Leningrad, Arnhem, Tobruk and Normandy. This is the story of the Polish forces during the Second World War, the story of millions of young men and women who gave everything for freedom and in the final victory lost all. In a cruel twist of history, the monumental struggles of an entire nation have been largely forgotten, and even intentionally obscured. Available for the first time in paperback, No Greater Ally redresses the balance, giving a comprehensive overview of Poland's participation in World War 2. Following their valiant but doomed defense of Poland in 1939, members of the Polish armed forces fought with the Allies wherever and however they could. With previously unpublished first-hand accounts, information never before seen in English, and rare photographs, this title provides a detailed analysis of the devastation the war broughtto Poland, and the final betrayal when, having fought for freedom for six long years, Poland was handed to the Soviet Union.

As Adam Zamoyski set out to update The Polish Way, his bestselling first history of Poland, he realized the task required not so much re-writing as re-thinking the known facts well as the assumptions of the past. The events of the last twenty years and the growth of the independent Polish state allowed him to look at Poland's past with a fresh eye. Tracing Poland's complex development from the Middle Ages to present day, Zamoyski examines the country's political, economic, and military struggles, as well as its culture, art, and richly varied society through the ages, bringing the major events and characters in Poland's history to life.

Over the past 25 years, the relationship between the United States and Poland has been close and cooperative. The United States strongly supported Polands accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1999 and backed its entry into the European Union (EU) in 2004. In recent years, Poland has made significant contributions to U.S.- and NATO-led military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Poland and the United States continue working together on issues such as democracy promotion, counterterrorism, and improving NATO capabilities. Given its role as a close U.S. ally and partner, developments in Poland and its relations with the United States are of continuing interest to the U.S. Congress. This book provides an overview and assessment of some of the main dimensions of these topics.

In the eyes of the world, no European country appeared more vulnerable to its enemies or less likely to establish peace with them than inter-war Poland. This is the first full-length study of relations between Poland and the U.S. following World War I, as Poland turned to America to buttressits precarious position. Pease lucidly examines how Polish leaders of the 1920s, discerning America's essential aim of fostering stability in Europe, sought to enlist U.S. political and financial support on behalf of their beleaguered state. Drawing on exhaustive archival research, Pease unravelsthe fascinating ties between these unlikely diplomatic partners. He reveals how Poland not only had to fight an uphill battle against inter-war America's isolationism, but also had to counter America's reluctance to underwrite a nation surrounded by two strong and hostile neighbors, Germany and theSoviet Union. Poland's plea for political and financial backing was ultimately denied by both the White House and Wall Street with dire consequences for Poland's future and Europe's fragile peace. Authoritative and original, this book is valuable contribution to our understanding of America andEurope during the interwar years.

Traces the history of Poland from the tenth century to the present and clarifies the political and cultural complexities of Poland and its history.

The 1980 general strike in Poland and the establishment of the independent Solidarity movement, which sought to create a state based on civic freedom, were symptoms of a crisis of the communist system. Revolution and Counterrevolution in Poland, 1980-1989: Solidarity, Martial Law, and the End of Communism in Europe recounts and analyzes the events of this formative decade in Polish history, with particular emphasis on the martial law period. Drawing on extensive archival research, Andrzej Paczkowski examines the origin and form of the Solidarity revolution, the course of the Communist counterrevolution, and the final victory won by Solidarity along with its international repercussions.

The United States And Poland adds a new dimension to the scholarship of America's international relations. Professor Wandycz present a comprehensive picture of the changing relationships between the United States and Poland over two hundred years. This work is, as Wandycz writes, both a survey and a synthesis. Because he believes that an understanding of the history of Poland is necessary in order to appreciate the complex nature of its involvement with the United States, he provides a thorough analysis of Poland's internal development, concentrating on the twentieth century.

Electronic copy from HathiTrust.External

Dzieło obejmuje lata I wojny światowej oraz okres intensywnych zabiegów politycznych i dyplomatycznych w trakcie konferencji pokojowej w Paryżu. Roman Dmowski jako polityk i pisarz polityczny, konsekwentnie i z uporem realizował swój główny wytyczony pod koniec XIX wieku cel: odzyskanie przez Polskę niepodległości.

W listopadzie 1918 roku po 123 latach niewoli państwo polskie odzyskało niepodległość. Ziściły się marzenia kilku pokoleń Polaków, przeciwstawiających się w ciągu tego okresu trzem zaborcom: rosyjskiemu, austriackiemu i pruskiemu. Wtedy rozpoczęła się walka o granice i tworzenie sojuszy. Syntetyczne ujęcie problematyki dotyczącej polskiej polityki zagranicznej w latach 1918-1939. Praca oparta na źródłach historycznych opublikowanych w Polsce i za granicą również tych które ukazały się po 1989 roku.