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The Towns of Death relies on witness reports from survivors, bystanders, and the murderers themselves as found in court testimonies to describe the pogroms of Jews in Eastern Poland in 1941–1942 perpetrated by their Polish neighbors. The author demonstrates the pivotal role of the Catholic clergy and individual priests, the intellectual classes, and political circles in perpetuating anti-Semitism, often leading to the murder of thousands of Polish Jews.
In Poland's Last King, Richard Butterwick reassesses the achievement of Poland's most controversial king. He shows how Stanislaw August's radical plans for constitutional reform and the renewal of Polish culture were profoundly influenced by his admiration of England, and examines the successes and limitations of the Polish Enlightenment.
A major new assessment of the "vanished kingdom" of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth--one which recognizes its achievements before its destruction Richard Butterwick tells the compelling story of the last decades of one of Europe's largest and least understood polities: the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Drawing on the latest research, Butterwick vividly portrays the turbulence the Commonwealth experienced. Far from seeing it as a failed state, he shows the ways in which it overcame the stranglehold of Russia and briefly regained its sovereignty, the crowning success of which took place on 3 May 1791--the passing of the first Constitution of modern Europe.
The Complete Story of Civilization by Will Durant represents the most comprehensive attempt in our times to embrace the vast panorama of man’s history and culture. This eleven volume set includes: Volume One: Our Oriental Heritage; Volume Two: The Life of Greece; Volume Three: Caesar and Christ; Volume Four: The Age of Faith; Volume Five: The Renaissance; Volume Six: The Reformation; Volume Seven: The Age of Reason Begins; Volume Eight: The Age of Louis XIV; Volume Nine: The Age of Voltaire; Volume Ten: Rousseau and Revolution; Volume Eleven: The Age of Napoleon
1. Amsterdam: a center of credit -- 2. Frankfurt an der Oder: Central European middlemen -- 3. Border lands: legal restrictions, army supplying, and economic success -- 4. Praga: a stepping stone -- 5. Warsaw: the rise of a Jewish economic elite
In the closing years of the 18th century, the old Polish state paid the price of over 100 years of ungovernability in political extinction. Between 1772 and 1795 an area of Eastern Europe larger than France was divided among Russia, Prussia and Austria. At the very time that monarchial absolutism seemed to be collapsing in Western Europe, the dismemberment of the Polish "noble democracy" affirmed absolutism's triumph in the East. Bringing together Polish scholarship previously inaccessible to English-speaking readers, the author examines the economy, the society and the institutional structure of early modern Poland and analyzes her loss of national sovereignty in the light of Poland's lack of political centralization and dynastic strength. Not only does this book illuminate a much neglected area of European history, and assist those trying to make sense of Poland's heritage, it also provides much comparative material for students of early modern history in general. Furthermore no reader could fail to be struck by the parallels in the problematic relationship between Poland and Russia in the 18th century and today.
For four centuries, the Polish-Lithuanian state encompassed a major geographic region comparable to present-day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Estonia, and Romania. Governed by a constitutional monarchy that offered the numerous nobility extensive civil and political rights, it enjoyed unusual domestic tranquility, for its military strength kept most enemies at bay until the mid-seventeenth century and the country generally avoided civil wars. Selling grain and timber to western Europe helped make it exceptionally wealthy for much of the period. The Polish-Lithuanian State, 1386-1795 is the first account in English devoted specifically to this important era. It takes a ...
“The word “Geborgenheit” in turn reminds me of an evening at our very modest one-room dwelling. The year was 1940 and I was only 6 years old. We were seated at the table having dinner: my father, my mother and I. My parents talked for a long time and I was just listening without understanding, of course, what they were talking about. All around one could hear the roar of war. At night the Soviet planes bombing Warsaw, during the day the threat of being arrested in the street and shot dead. In that context of hatred, my being so close to people who loved each other (she, German, he, a Pole) resulted in something unforgettable and extraordinary. I felt “geborgen” in the deepest and fullest meaning of that word. Very, very happy, still sitting at the table, I fell asleep.”