Poland in the Modern World - (New History of Modern Europe) by Brian Porter-Szücs (Paperback)
About this item
Highlights
- Poland in the Modern World presents a history of the country from the late nineteenth century to the present, incorporating new perspectives from social and cultural history and positioning it in a broad global context Challenges traditional accounts Poland that tend to focus on national, political history, emphasizing the country's 'exceptionalism'.
- About the Author: Brian Porter-Szücs is Professor of History at the University of Michigan, where he has taught since 1994.
- 400 Pages
- History, Europe
- Series Name: New History of Modern Europe
Description
Book Synopsis
Poland in the Modern World presents a history of the country from the late nineteenth century to the present, incorporating new perspectives from social and cultural history and positioning it in a broad global context
- Challenges traditional accounts Poland that tend to focus on national, political history, emphasizing the country's 'exceptionalism'.
- Presents a lively, multi-dimensional story, balancing coverage of high politics with discussion of social, cultural and economic changes, and their effects on individuals' daily lives.
- Explores both the regional diversity within Poland and the country's place within Europe and the wider world.
- Provides a new interpretive framework for understanding key historical events in Poland's modern history, including the experiences of World War II and the postwar communist era.
From the Back Cover
This timely account of Poland's modern history, from the end of the 19th century to the present day, positions the country within the context of Europe, using the events of Poland's past to illustrate and illuminate the global forces that have transformed the world over the last century.
Challenging traditional, nationalistic accounts of heroism and tragedy, the author sets the major political events in Polish history alongside broader developments within society. He provides particular insight into the regional, cultural and economic diversity of the country, and focusses on the experience of individuals' daily lives. For instance, readers learn of the day-to-day relations between people of differing religion and language between the two world wars, the realities of life in the Warsaw ghetto; what Stalin's industrial expansion meant for the peasants who took up factory jobs in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the effects of changing concepts of masculinity and femininity over time. The result is a lively and nuanced historical overview that recognizes both the particularities and the universality of modern Poland's story.
Review Quotes
"While the authors largely agree that the main motif of Polish history is the way in which leaders and communities pursued modernization and nationalization in the modern era, each writes about these topics in unique and fascinating ways." (Pol-int.org, 1 October 2015)
"Brian Porter-Szucs's new book Poland in the Modern World: Beyond Martyrdom is like a breath of fresh air . . . In sum, this is a splendid book and an optimistic one. Porter-Szucs tries to find some good in everyone (well, maybe not in Stalin), for which he is to be commended. This reviewer believes that his book will become the standard general work on recent Polish history." (The Polish Review, 1 October 2014)
"Moving in a new direction, Porter-Szûcs' work adds an important and distinct voice to the fray. It is a genuine attempt to look at Poland's history through that new prism of a transnational spirit. It forces us to look at history in different ways--from the outside in, from the bottom up--and to rethink it in significant ways. Ultimately, at times, it challenges us to reconsider the existing master narrative." (Cosmopolitan Review, 1 October 2015)
"Poland in the Modern World is a valuable contribution to central and eastern European historiography and the study of Communist and post-Communist societies. In presenting sophisticated insights from a variety of disciplines and from a comparative perspective, the author characterizes Poland's history of the last two centuries as a history of neither winners nor losers. In doing so, he gets beyond stereotypes and clichés about the country, particularly the 'national martyrology' that informs much of Polish historiography." (H-SAE, February 2015)
"Well researched, engagingly written, and full of striking anecdotes, Brian Porter-Szûcs's Poland in the Modern World deserves a wide readership." (Slavic Review, 1 October 2014)
About the Author
Brian Porter-Szücs is Professor of History at the University of Michigan, where he has taught since 1994. He is the author of Faith and Fatherland: Catholicism, Modernity, and Poland (2011) and When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth-Century Poland (2000). He is also the co-editor, with Bruce Berglund, of Christianity and Modernity in Eastern Europe (2010).
