The Polish Way: A Thousand-Year History of the Poles and Their Culture Review

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(More customer reviews)In the Polish Way, Zamoyski sets out to create a "reasonable synthesis" of Polish history from what he describes as the body of patronizing foreign works and defensively nationalistic Polish ones. He succeeds reasonably well in this goal. If he does lean at times toward nationalism in describing the "Polish Way" - religious tolerance, reliance on legal protections, respect for human rights - it can be excused because of his strictly factual approach and because of the important role the Zamoyski family played in much of the history he describes.
For me, though, there are two factors that make this such an excellent introductory history - one of the best one volume national histories I have read. First, the book skillfully weaves the history of ideas (primarily painting, music, architecture, literature and law) into the political and military narrative. I always found these sections both interesting and well integrated into the sweep of historical events. Second, the numerous maps, genealogies, photographs and other exhibits - including a Polish pronunciation guide - are invaluable to a reader, like me, with little or no prior knowledge of Polish history. I wish more authors and editors of so-called "popular histories" would pay as much attention to these important finishing touches.
True to his goal of producing a synthesis, Zamoyski describes the important themes in Polish history but stops short of providing analysis or conclusions. In describing changes in Poland's political system, he begs analysis of the eventual weakness of early Polish democracy in the absence of a "nation" based on ethnicity, religion, language or a common conception of a territorial homeland and of the strength of today's Poland partially, according to the author, because of its relative homogeneity.
This analysis would be important for a clear understanding of modern Poland and Europe (and other multi-ethnic, multi-lingual democracies). I plan to look for it in other books. The "Polish Way" does an excellent job at introducing the terrain.

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