Download or read book God s Playground A History of Poland written by Norman Davies and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-02-24 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book God s Playground A History of Poland written by Norman Davies and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-02-24 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The History of Poland written by M. B. B. Biskupski and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-09-07 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an engaging explanation of the complicated history of Poland, one of the least well-known countries in Europe. Poland, which has one of the strongest economies in the European Union, has faced significant turmoil throughout the years. Encapsulating centuries of development, this book distills Poland's historical evolution into patterns, including those that have developed since the first edition was published nearly 20 years ago. The book begins with an overview of contemporary Poland, providing both basic information about the geography, culture, and current political climate of the country while tying these to major contemporary issues. This introduction is followed by chapters discussing Poland's long history, starting with the 10th century. The second half of the book presents a history of Poland in the 20th and 21st centuries, covering the major issues affecting the country and offering possible interpretations of them. This updated and revised edition accounts for recent events in Poland and examines the effects of the Polish diaspora globally.

Download or read book Power and Military Effectiveness written by Michael C. Desch and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2008-04-14 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1815 democratic states have emerged victorious from most wars, leading many scholars to conclude that democracies are better equipped to triumph in armed conflict with autocratic and other non-representative governments. Political scientist Michael C. Desch argues that the evidence and logic of that supposition, which he terms “democratic triumphalism,” are as flawed as the arguments for the long-held and opposite belief that democracies are inherently disadvantaged in international relations. Through comprehensive statistical analysis, a thorough review of two millennia of international relations thought, and in-depth case studies of modern-era military conflicts, Desch finds that the problems that persist in prosecuting wars—from building up and maintaining public support to holding the military and foreign policy elites in check—remain constant regardless of any given state’s form of government. In assessing the record, he finds that military effectiveness is almost wholly reliant on the material assets that a state possesses and is able to mobilize. Power and Military Effectiveness is an instructive reassessment of the increasingly popular belief that military success is one of democracy’s many virtues. International relations scholars, policy makers, and military minds will be well served by its lessons.

Download or read book The Origins of Modern Polish Democracy written by M. B. B. Biskupski and published by Ohio University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-15 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Origins of Modern Polish Democracy is a series of closely integrated essays that traces the idea of democracy in Polish thought and practice. It begins with the transformative events of the mid-nineteenth century, which witnessed revolutionary developments in the socioeconomic and demographic structure of Poland, and continues through changes that marked the postcommunist era of free Poland. The idea of democracy survived in Poland through long periods of foreign occupation, the trials of two world wars, and years of Communist subjugation. Whether in Poland itself or among exiles, Polish speculation about the creation of a liberal-democratic Poland has been central to modern Polish political thought. This volume is unique in that is traces the evolution of the idea of democracy, both during the periods when Poland was an independent country—1918-1939—and during the periods of foreign occupation before 1918 through World War II and the Communist era. For those periods when Poland was not free, the volume discusses how the idea of democracy evolved among exile and underground Polish circles. This important work is the only single-volume English-language history of modern Polish democratic thought and parliamentary systems and represents the latest scholarly research by leading specialists from Europe and North America.

Download or read book Reluctant Socialists Rural Entrepreneurs written by Carole Nagengast and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PREDOMINANTLY A RURAL NATION, Poland is most often depicted with urban scenes: steelworkers, trade unions, Communist party members, and Solidarity meetings. In contrast to this industrial vision, Reluctant Socialists, Rural Entrepreneurs views historical and recent changes and their agrarian consequences.During her many years in the Polish countryside, Dr. Nagengast has observed,studied, and worked side by side with farmers and other members of the agrarian class. Here she provides a first-hand perspective on the monumental failures of the Polish version of socialism, which were largely due to decisions that led the nation-state down a distinctly capitalist path to agrarian development. On the basis of her extensive research, Nagengast makes chilling forecasts about the impact of the accelerating development of capitalism on the culture, politics, and economy of Poland.This book will be useful to anthropologists, sociologists, and scholars interested in Eastern European and socialist studies.

Download or read book Eastern Europe 1945 1969 written by Ben Fowkes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-05-12 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is an essential short guide to the history of Eastern Europe under the early decades of communist rule. The study explores the communists attempt to transpose a uniform economic and social system across the region copied from the Soviet model. Dr Fowkes shows how this did not always succeed and he reveals the local variations which became more pronounced after the death of Stalin. The book includes detailed analysis of the dramatic events in Poland and Hungary and in the assessment section there is a useful summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the communist model in its heyday. It is an illuminating study, full of maps and photographs as well as over 30 documents (most previously unavailable in English) which brings this complex subject alive. and helps us to understand the special conditions the people of the region have faced in catching up with the West both in terms of material prosperity and more recently in the establishment of democratic political systems.

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Poland 1945 1996 written by Piotr Wróbel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-27 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Located between the former Soviet Union and eastern Germany, Poland has the potential to become a political and economic bridge between the East and West. It is crucial to European security and stabilization; yet the list of reference books on recent Polish history is very short. This book fills that gap, providing information on Polish political, economic, and cultural history since 1945.

Download or read book The Constitution of Poland written by Miroslaw Granat and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-11-28 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the Polish Constitution of 1997, concentrating on its structure, its substance and some of the institutional choices made by the drafters. The core of the Constitution is similar to other liberal democratic constitutions, but, in addition, it regulates a number of issues – such as public finances and sources of law – that are new to Polish constitutionalism and to constitutionalism in general. It considers in a detailed manner certain institutional choices made in the Constitution, such as the bicameral parliament, the peculiar structure of the executive branch, as well as the principle of independence of courts and judges, fundamental rights and local government. The book is a vital resource for all those interested in Poland's Constitution, and the rich comparative constitutional insights the country offers. In addition to explaining the 1997 Constitution in its political, historical, and social context, the book tackles the radical changes, in particular within the judicial branch, introduced by the new governing majority since 2015. These new regulations, constitutional in character, but without formally changing the Constitution, challenged the rule of law, a key component of membership in the European Union. Despite the negative nature of these recent developments, the anchoring of Polish constitutional law in European constitutionalism presents a source of optimism that the 1997 Constitution will regain its position as the supreme law of the state.

Download or read book Women s Emancipation Movements in the Nineteenth Century written by Sylvia Paletschek and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2005-11-14 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The nineteenth century, a time of far-reaching cultural, political, and socio-economic transformation in Europe, brought about fundamental changes in the role of women. Women achieved this by fighting for their rights in the legal, economic, and political spheres. In the various parts of Europe, this process went forward at a different pace and followed different patterns. Most historical research up to now has ignored this diversity, preferring to focus on women’s emancipation movements in major western European countries such as Britain and France. The present volume provides a broader context to the movement by including countries both large and small from all regions of Europe. Fourteen historians, all of them specialists in women’s history, examine the origins and development of women’s emancipation movements in their respective areas of expertise. By exploring the cultural and political diversity of nineteenth-century Europe and at the same time pointing out connections to questions explored by conventional scholarship, the essays shed new light on common developments and problems.

Download or read book The Politics of Love written by Natalie Cornett and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2024-09-15 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Politics of Love describes the history of Polish intellectual and cultural life, which covertly flourished at home and abroad despite imperial repression between Poland's two great uprisings in 1830–1831 and 1863. Natalie Cornett focuses her study on a group of educated women known as the "Enthusiasts" (Entuzjastki), who were united by their commitment to live as independent women despite the intense nationalism that put the nation above all—including class and gender. The Enthusiasts, led by Narcyza Żmichowska, emphasized sororal love and homosocial bonding in their program to contest both an oppressive imperial regime and constrictive gender roles. Their affective relationships with each other and their decision to remain unmarried, childless, or divorced violated accepted conventions and the patriotic emphasis on the Polish family. By drawing on a large corpus of their letters, diaries, police files, and published works, Cornett describes the Enthusiast movement from its emergence in the 1840s to the death of Narcyza Żmichowska, in 1876. The Politics of Love describes how the Polish intelligentsia was so monomaniacally focused on the struggle for independence that discussion of other social questions was dismissed as "unpatriotic." Its dismissal of the Enthusiasts as socially deviant, despite the Enthusiasts' support for the national cause, reveals the limitations of nationalism as a binding agent and demonstrates how Polish women appropriated and contributed ideas about women's emancipation, nationalism, and religion in a globalizing era of increasing literacy and transnational exchange.

Download or read book Longman Companion to Imperial Russia 1689 1917 written by David Longley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-07-30 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book of its kind to draw together information on the major events in Russian history from 1695 to 1917 - covering the eventful period from the accession of Peter the Great to the fall of Nicholas II. Not only is a vast amount of material on key events and topics brought together, but the book also contains fascinating background material to convey the reality of life in the period.

Download or read book British Entrepreneurship in Poland written by Sarah Dietz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing upon an impressive range of international sources, this book explores the late-nineteenth century partnership between Bradford worsted manufacturers the Briggs brothers and the German merchant Ernst Posselt, and their subsequent foreign direct investment in a modern factory and workers’ community at Marki, near Warsaw in Poland. Protectionism and increasing foreign competition are discussed, among many complex economic pressures on British industry, as likely catalysts for this enterprise and the general historiography of the Polish lands is explored to reveal a climate of extraordinary opportunity for well-capitalised foreign industrialists in this period. British, Polish and German press and archival documents, as well as Russian police and factory inspectors’ reports reveal the everyday experience of Polish factory workers and British consular correspondence provides fascinating insight into the machinations of the entrepreneurs and Warsaw’s cosmopolitan business community. Through the development and domination of market and raw materials sources, this venture is shown to have monopolised worsted manufacture in the Russian Empire, using state of the art technology to create, and modern marketing techniques to promote, its product range and evolving image. Marki was described in 1886 as ’a second edition of Saltaire’ and latterly as ’the Polish Bournville or Port Sunlight’, thus aspects of British and Polish social history are compared to assess the efficacy of introducing the model-community concept, in combination with a radical employment policy, to less industrially-developed Poland. The experiences of an expatriate community of skilled Yorkshire foremen and their instrumentality in diffusing British industrial technology throughout the Russian Empire are described. Against a backdrop of political instability and social upheaval, which dramatically impacted on business behaviour after 1905 and particularly during the interwar period of

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Poland 966 1945 written by Halina Lerski and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1996-01-19 with total page 778 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first authoritative, comprehensive historical dictionary of Poland in English, this volume includes over 2,000 entries on people, events, places, and terms important to Poland's history from 966 to 1945. Entries include English and Polish language bibliographic sources. The student of Polish history seeking specific information on a person or event in medieval times, the troubled era leading to the late 18th century partitions of Poland, and the Polish nationalist struggles before 1919, reborn Poland in the interwar years, or the trauma of World War II will be amply rewarded by the accurate, concise information provided in this unique historical dictionary. Each of the alphabetically arranged entries is followed by pertinent bibliographic sources in both English and Polish languages. A list of abbreviations, a note on the Polish alphabet, and a series of historical maps precede the entries. Helpful cross-references are provided throughout the text and in the index. A general bibliography precedes the index. After five years of work, George Lerski completed the original manuscript in 1992, shortly before his untimely death. The special editing subsequently undertaken preparatory to publication has remained faithful to the original work, its concept, organization, and purpose.

Download or read book The Reconstruction of Poland 1914 23 written by Paul Latawski and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-07-27 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Reconstruction of Poland, 1914-23 is a significant reappraisal of the political, social and economic problems associated with the rebirth of an independent Polish state. The book spans a chronological period beginning in the First World War and culminates in the de jure recognition of the last of Poland's borders in 1923. This book provides essential background for the more recent attempt to rebuild Poland in the 1990s.

Download or read book Beyond Versailles written by Marcus M. Payk and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-29 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten essays analyzing the history and effects of the Paris Peace Conference following World War I. The settlement of Versailles was more than a failed peace. What was debated at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919–1920 hugely influenced how nations and empires, sovereignty, and the international order were understood after the Great War?and into the present. Beyond Versailles argues thatthis transformation of ideas was not the work of the treaty makers alone, but emerged in interaction with nationalist groups, anti-colonial movements, and regional elites who took up the rhetoric of Paris and made it their own. In shifting the spotlight from the palace of Versailles to the peripheries of Europe, Beyond Versailles turns to the treaties’ resonance on the ground and shows why the principles of the peace settlement meant different things in different locales. It was in places a long way from Paris?in Polish borderlands and in Portuguese colonies, in contested spaces like Silesia, Teschen, and Danzig, and in states emerging from imperial collapse like Austria, Egypt, and Iran?that notions of nation and sovereignty, legitimacy, and citizenship were negotiated and contested. “This is an excellent collected volume, well-conceived and very well written. . . . This is not at all a top-down history of the diffusion of ideas about national self-determination. Rather, it is an examination of the ways in which these ideas were taken up, re-fashioned, and reasserted at many levels to serve local and regional agendas, while at the same time influencing international debates about the meanings and possible implementations of self-determination.” —Pieter M. Judson, author of The Habsburg Empire: A New History

Download or read book Poland s Holocaust written by Tadeusz Piotrowski and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2007-01-09 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the end of World War I, a new Republic of Poland emerged on the maps of Europe, made up of some of the territory from the first Polish Republic, including Wolyn and Wilno, and significant parts of Belarus, Upper Silesia, Eastern Galicia, and East Prussia. The resulting conglomeration of ethnic groups left many substantial minorities wanting independence. The approach of World War II provided the minorities' leaders a new opportunity in their nationalist movements, and many sided with one or the other of Poland's two enemies--the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany--in hopes of achieving their goals at the expense of Poland and its people. Based on primary and secondary sources in numerous languages (including Polish, German, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Russian and English), this work examines the roles of the ethnic minorities in the collapse of the Republic and in the atrocities that occurred under the occupying troops. The Polish government's response to mounting ethnic tensions in the prewar era and its conduct of the war effort are also examined.