Daniel Logemann is an architect. In his dissertation, his house, he has taken blueprints and built spaces for the family. There are two neighbors living in this communal apartment: East Germans and Poles. Their personal apartments are by-and-large equitable: the East Germans got the apartment with a garage to park their car and bicycle, while the Poles got the one with a balcony to see the city. In other words, East Germans got the economy, Poles got political liberalism.
Patrice Dabrowski (2014): Poland: The First Thousand Years and Brian Porter-Szűcs (2014): Poland in the Modern World. Beyond Martyrdom and Anita Prażmowska (2013): Poland: A Modern History
As a student at Berkeley, I was once a graduate assistant in a history of modern Europe lecture seminar. The professor was a West Europeanist, although the themes of the seminar bridged both East and West. Throughout the otherwise well-taught seminar, I was struck by the lack of attention on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or its various permutations after partition. Indeed, Poland offers perhaps one of the best case studies to explore major themes of modern European (and global) history. It was a place where Christianization, the Enlightenment, nationalization and industrialization all took root in various (frequently unexpected) forms. In the twentieth century, particularly, Poland was not only a case study: it was the central theater in Europe where ideologies of various stripe fought each other in word and deed. While the country is usually only treated as a side note in history lectures, three recent publications reveal how central Poland can be in understanding European history. Each book offers different approaches to the grand narrative of this region, and all are revisionist when compared to the traditional story told by conservatives in Poland, even if they vary greatly in the degree of revision. They represent in a nutshell the various ways in which Polish history is being interpreted by academics and the society at large. The first book, by University of Vienna researcher Patrice Dabrowski, takes the first thousand years of Polish history; the second, by London School of Economics and Political Science professor Anita Prażmowska, begins in the nineteenth century; the third, by University of Michigan professor Brian Porter-Szűcs, focuses primarily on the twentieth century. The authors' point of departure arguably frames the way in which they tell the story of Poland.
Patrice Dabrowski (2014): Poland: The First Thousand Years and Brian Porter-Szűcs (2014): Poland in the Modern World. Beyond Martyrdom and Anita Prażmowska (2013): Poland: A Modern History
As a student at Berkeley, I was once a graduate assistant in a history of modern Europe lecture seminar. The professor was a West Europeanist, although the themes of the seminar bridged both East and West. Throughout the otherwise well-taught seminar, I was struck by the lack of attention on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or its various permutations after partition. Indeed, Poland offers perhaps one of the best case studies to explore major themes of modern European (and global) history. It was a place where Christianization, the Enlightenment, nationalization and industrialization all took root in various (frequently unexpected) forms. In the twentieth century, particularly, Poland was not only a case study: it was the central theater in Europe where ideologies of various stripe fought each other in word and deed. While the country is usually only treated as a side note in history lectures, three recent publications reveal how central Poland can be in understanding European history. Each book offers different approaches to the grand narrative of this region, and all are revisionist when compared to the traditional story told by conservatives in Poland, even if they vary greatly in the degree of revision. They represent in a nutshell the various ways in which Polish history is being interpreted by academics and the society at large. The first book, by University of Vienna researcher Patrice Dabrowski, takes the first thousand years of Polish history; the second, by London School of Economics and Political Science professor Anita Prażmowska, begins in the nineteenth century; the third, by University of Michigan professor Brian Porter-Szűcs, focuses primarily on the twentieth century. The authors' point of departure arguably frames the way in which they tell the story of Poland.
Review: "Poland. A modern history"/ Anita Prażmowska. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012. ISBN 978-1780762883
(2015)
Patrice Dabrowski (2014): Poland: The First Thousand Years and Brian Porter-Szűcs (2014): Poland in the Modern World. Beyond Martyrdom and Anita Prażmowska (2013): Poland: A Modern History
As a student at Berkeley, I was once a graduate assistant in a history of modern Europe lecture seminar. The professor was a West Europeanist, although the themes of the seminar bridged both East and West. Throughout the otherwise well-taught seminar, I was struck by the lack of attention on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or its various permutations after partition. Indeed, Poland offers perhaps one of the best case studies to explore major themes of modern European (and global) history. It was a place where Christianization, the Enlightenment, nationalization and industrialization all took root in various (frequently unexpected) forms. In the twentieth century, particularly, Poland was not only a case study: it was the central theater in Europe where ideologies of various stripe fought each other in word and deed. While the country is usually only treated as a side note in history lectures, three recent publications reveal how central Poland can be in understanding European history. Each book offers different approaches to the grand narrative of this region, and all are revisionist when compared to the traditional story told by conservatives in Poland, even if they vary greatly in the degree of revision. They represent in a nutshell the various ways in which Polish history is being interpreted by academics and the society at large. The first book, by University of Vienna researcher Patrice Dabrowski, takes the first thousand years of Polish history; the second, by London School of Economics and Political Science professor Anita Prażmowska, begins in the nineteenth century; the third, by University of Michigan professor Brian Porter-Szűcs, focuses primarily on the twentieth century. The authors' point of departure arguably frames the way in which they tell the story of Poland.